Considering Insurance Scheme for Care Needs

This is part 2 of the previous blog, so read that now if you haven’t. We established that individuals and Government have a responsibility to provide care.

The Coalition Government have created a commission to look at the funding of care and support in England. A chief consideration will be creating either a mandatory or voluntary insurance scheme whereby you pay in advance of having care needs and the policy will cover the costs of your support needs that are not met by the Government’s contribution.

So, I pay £20 p/m and then when I’m 75 and need support to live at home or residential care, my insurance company will cover the costs (let’s assume reasonable insurance companies for this blog’s purpose). Sounds simple.

But what if my wife (this isn’t a public proposal Mum) decides that she would like to care for me and doesn’t care that the insurance wouldn’t pay her to do it? We’ve just paid all that money for no reason. This could lead to two things:

1. Fewer people provide care because they feel as though the insurance company, or Government if it is publicly run, should pay for all care

2. People don’t pay for insurance because they expect to receive family provided care

Let’s start with the first scenario. Fewer people caring increases demand on paid care, pushing up costs of the system. This is bad news for a Commission that is trying to create a more sustainable system because of projected funding gaps. If carers currently provide £87bn worth of care, the system could very quickly become completely unsustainable if families stop caring.

But the second scenario doesn’t look good either. This would increase the demands on families to provide care when we already know there is too much pressure on them currently.

The solution to overcome these problems must encourage and account for families who are providing care.

There is no way of knowing how much informal care you will receive whilst paying your insurance, which is generally before you have support needs. So the only way to recognise the caring contribution is by giving rebates to families when they are providing care.

Does this solve the problem? Not quite. How much do you decide to give them?

It’s another ‘to be continued’ as the next blog will look at this question.

Till next time, take care

Gordon

Do Carers Fit Cameron’s Big Society?

Whilst you’ve been treated to a few guest bloggers, I’ve been doing some thinking. This could be dangerous but please stay with me!!!

Cameron’s Big Society is all about redefining the relationship between individuals, communities and Government/the State. But what does, or should, this mean in relation to carers?

I actually think carers don’t fit Cameron’s view of current society. His view is that Government is too involved; does too much in people’s lives; and has extinguished the do-it-yourself (or ourselves) attitude. We have become reliant on the government.

David Cameron announced a Big Society plan

How many carers feel that they are reliant on Government? Or that Government in the form of social and health services are too involved? Or that carers don’t very often do it for themselves?

No, it seems that carers fit the society that Cameron wants to create. Individuals, families, friends and neighbours taking responsibility for the care of each other. Carers are not people passing the buck to the State, they are people doing it for themselves.

But that’s not the end of the story. There are fundamental questions that follow from this:

• Should Government be more involved – what is or should be their responsibility?
• Carers are taking responsibility, but is it their responsibility to do so in the first place?

Legally speaking, Government does have responsibilities regarding people requiring care and support, but there is not a law saying that people have to provide care.

From this, you could say that carers are doing what Government should be. You can see this feeling contained within some of the campaign messages that we/carers/carers’ organisations use: carers save the Government £87bn from the care they provide; carers only get paid £53.90 (Carer’s Allowance for which you have to care at least 35 hours p/w) which is well below the legal minimum wage.

But these two messages raise two questions:

Are we saying that people should not be providing any care and the Government provide it all? Are we saying that people should be paid to care for spouses, parents, children or siblings rather than expecting families to provide some element of care for each other because they want to?

I don’t think many people believe that the Government should provide all care, with many wanting to be the one who cares for their wife/husband/father/mother etc. And I think many would say that families should be there for one another, and not need to be paid to do so.

So, there should be responsibilities on both individuals and Government. What should those be and what does that mean in terms of policy? That’s for the next blog.

Take care,

Gordon

Education without Compromise: Doing the right thing for young carers in school

As a student of both politics and history at school and university I remember being fascinated by coalition governments, the opportunities and challenges that faced them and hoped that a coalition government might happen in my lifetime.

We want a coalition government that takes a shared and joint responsibility for meeting young carers' needs

I hear a good friend reminding me: “Danni, be careful what you wish for”.

The optimist in me sees a political landscape filled with consensus-seeking, compromise and opportunity. The pessimist suspects a series of stalemates and dead ends and (at least) two sets of opinions, views (and egos!) that make change difficult to achieve.

I, like many others, wonder how it’s all going to pan out but more importantly what this will mean for carers and young carers throughout the UK.

One of our election asks was that there should be more support for young carers in school. We know that for many children and young people, being a carer has a detrimental impact on their education and experience of school life, and this is evidenced by the results of our recent survey of young carers aged 6-18.

700 young carers took part and the findings make grim reading:

• Nearly half of the young carers who took part in the study said there was not a single teacher at their school who knew they were a young carer.
• 60% said that they do not think their teacher would understand what life was like for them
• 70% agreed with the statement that “being a young carer has made their life more difficult”
• More than two thirds reported being bullied at school

What is The Trust doing about this? Firstly, in partnership with The Children’s Society (politicians take note: it can be done), The Trust has developed a new information pack ‘Supporting Young Carers: a resource for schools’ to help staff identify and support young carers more effectively, free to download from www.carers.org/professionals from May 2010.

Secondly, and crucially, the Trust will work quickly to get to grips with new ministerial teams, policies and personalities. Both the Tories and the Liberal Democrats have school reform on their agenda, and the Prime Minister spoke on Wednesday of “rebuilding family, rebuilding community, above all, rebuilding responsibility in our country”. The Trust will be asking the new administration to take a long, hard look at these statistics and use their powers to ensure that young carers are supported in their school and community, and that where there is illness or disability in a family, the whole family is supported. We want a coalition government that takes a shared and joint responsibility for meeting young carers’ needs, whoever they are and wherever they live.

Take care,

Danni

Danni Manzi, Policy and Development Manager for Young Carers (England and Wales) at The Princess Royal Trust for Carers, is guest blogger this week

Does focus on services for the carer detract from a whole-family approach?

I've been thinking about what's changed

I’m coming to the end of 10 years in the carer’s movement so I’ve been thinking about what’s changed.

Every campaign and movement for change starts by carving out its identity. It has to be clear about who it’s for and who it’s not, so that, in our case, the government and the public understand who carers are and why their needs matter.

I think the carer’s movement has done that pretty well. People still say “carer” when they mean “paid care-worker”, but you only had to look at the three party leaders competing to sing the praises of unpaid family carers to realise that understanding of carers has hit the mainstream. I can’t imagine Thatcher, Kinnock and Steel/Owen having that conversation.

That necessary focus on carving out a space in public policy for carers has had some downsides, though. In fighting against being lumped together with services for people with long term conditions, we haven’t always had enough of a focus on whole-family solutions. Nine times out of ten, carers come to Carers’ Centres with a crisis in the life of the person they are caring for, which has in turn become a crisis for them. It is usually some time before the Centre can help that person to begin to reconnect with themselves as an individual, rather than seeing themselves solely as their relative or friend’s carer. In the messages we give to government, I think we are still finding the right balance between promoting the need for independent services which are first and foremost for the carer, and helping policy makers to understand that decisions made about people’s health and social care support are decisions that affect whole families.

Getting this right will become ever more important, because councils and the NHS are about to come under huge pressure to cut and amalgamate services and because we have seen the personalisation reforms (personal budgets, direct payments etc) have both good and bad effects on the people who continue to provide the bulk of many support packages: the unpaid carers.

We are all inter-connected and interdependent. Both those who give and those who receive care and support can be excluded from ordinary life chances such as employment, community life and full participation in family relationships.. The state can barely afford health and social care as it is. Without a whole-family approach that feels joined up and supportive to unpaid carers, as well as to the people they support, that funding gap will widen and we will again see the NHS and social services teeter on the brink of collapse.

But if over the next ten years, the carer’s movement can help to make it self-evident to every council and local NHS trust that carers are both fundamental to delivering services, and also individuals in their own right, the rewards unlocked for families and for the state will be huge.

While I’m moving on to a new job, I have been thinking about the many carers for whom caring is life-long. Working with carers has, I hope, left an indelible mark upon my life. I’m grateful for that and for the thousands of contributions of time, expertise and experiences The Trust receives from carers: there would be no change without you.

Alex

Alex Fox, guest blogger this week, is Director of Policy and Communications at The Princess Royal Trust for Carers