What is an unpaid carer?

An unpaid carer is a person of any age who provides unpaid help and support to wife, husband, partner, son, daughter, parent, relative, partner, friend or neighbour who cannot manage without the carers help.

They may need help because of their age, they are ill, frail, have a disability, addiction or mental health issues and need support to live independently.

Some carers live with the person they care for and may spend many hours of the day caring. Others drop in on someone to make sure everything is okay, to bring them a meal, pick up prescriptions, administer medication or run errands for them.

Being a carer can be very rewarding and fulfilling but sometimes when you are looking after someone, you may find that your life changes in all sorts of ways.

You may find the person you care for needs more and more of your time, and this may affect your ability either to fulfil work commitments or to maintain relationships with your friends. It might also mean that you have to learn new skills such as cooking or dealing with finances.

You may feel that, bit by bit, you are losing control over your life because you are always being needed by someone else. You may also have feelings of isolation and guilt.

Caring for someone can happen very suddenly, for example, after someone has been discharged from hospital or you may find yourself doing more and more over many months and years.

Many people take on the role of carer in a gradual way and do not realise that the help they give to someone they care about means that they are a carer.

Although rewarding, looking after someone can affect your physical and emotional wellbeing and impact on you financially and socially. You may not like the title carer, but it does give you certain rights, so it is worth thinking about quite seriously.

Carers can be:

• a young person under 18 looking after a parent/brother/sister
• looking after a relative with a mental illness or physical disability
• the parent of a child with special needs
• a friend or relative looking after an older person.

Carers do not have to:

• live with the person they care for
• be the only carer
• be related to the person they care for.

Unpaid carers often do not see themselves as carers for a number of reasons for example because they may be a relative, partner or friend of the person they care for; or perhaps because they care for someone with a deteriorating condition and the care needs have increased gradually.

NHS Western Isles staff can play a crucial role in helping carers to recognise themselves as a carer, and then signposting them to the organisations where they can get support including information and advice, carer training, advocacy and counselling.

Carers provide a wide range of health and social care interventions to the person they care for, i.e. personal care, managing medication and dietary requirements.

Our staff aim to work with carers as equal partners in delivering the required care to the cared for person, and to support carers by ensuring they understand the treatment, medication, equipment, personal care needs of their care, how these will be met and what role they will play.

NHS Western Isles is working together with the local authority Comhairle nan Eilean Siar and our Third Sector partners along with carers on the implementation of the Carers Act from April 2018.