Carmarthenshire County Council have announced they are asking families to take on board more care responsibilities in light of the ‘Care Crisis’ hitting the UK and Wales.
In a statement released at the beginning of September, Jake Morgan, Carmarthenshire County Council’s Director of Communities stated:
“We are currently managing to provide care to the people most in need but the situation is becoming very difficult.
“This is a national issue not unique to Carmarthenshire, but people deserve to know why there are delays in the system and why we may be asking them to cooperate with temporary changes to ensure we can use our resources to care for as many people as possible.”
People are being asked to be flexible in their requests for care packages – for example carers may visit less frequently, at different times to normal, and the time they spend with people may be reduced.
Paid carers are usually employed by care agencies, the local authority or by the person themselves. An unpaid carer is someone who provides unpaid care and support to a family member or friend who has a disability, illness, mental health condition or someone who needs extra help as they grow older. This might be a partner, family member, friend or neighbour. Unpaid caring roles can be temporary or permanent.
Carers Wales state that there are more than 370,000 unpaid carers of all ages providing care worth around £8.1 billion to the Welsh economy each year. Wales has the highest proportion of older carers and carers providing more than 50 hours’ care a week.
It is widely suggested that a number of factors are influencing the carer shortage, including the impact of the pandemic when a lot of ‘in home’ care was reduced and a difficulty in recruiting staff within the care sector.
Carmarthenshire County Council is urgently recruiting carers to join its in-house social care team. The council is fast-tracking the recruitment system for people interested in becoming a carer, with a range of permanent posts across Carmarthenshire.
However, carers in Carmarthenshire say they were already dealing with strained services before Covid and that the reduced care is putting even more pressure on their families. We spoke to a number of carers about their recent experiences. They have asked to remain anonymous so we have changed their identities:
Steve from Carmarthen said:
“I’m a single parent and I care for my disabled adult son. He is quite challenging to support 24 hours a day, so having care coming in gave me a small break to get on with other things and it also helped him to socialise by seeing other people. But now his care support has been reduced drastically, you can see the effect on him. He struggles with new people now. It’s like we’ve taken 10 steps back.”
Jen from Llanelli said:
“I’m absolutely exhausted. I work part-time and those carer calls were absolutely essential to hold our whole family together. I’m upset that it feels like the Council are just throwing away bits of care that we had to heavily negotiate in the first place. Mum is quite elderly now and to be independent she needs a couple of call ins a day, in addition to the family support we give her. The calls might look small and insignificant, but that 20 minutes to check on my elderly mum whilst I was in work and help her make lunch is really important. It feels like care at home is being treated as a ‘pretty extra’ rather than being really essential to both our wellbeing and to our family being able to function.”
Paula, also from Llanelli, said:
“I’m physically and mentally exhausted. When Covid hit, my parents moved in as they were shielding. So we had to cancel my son’s care to stop people bringing in the virus. I work full time and I’ve taken on his full physical support on top, including washing, dressing and hoisting him in and out of bed. Now we’re trying to restart his care with his Social Worker, but Agencies are so short staffed no-one is picking up his contract. My employer has been so supportive and allowed me to work entirely from home, but what happens when that needs to change?”
Research released by Carers Wales for Carers Week in 2021 showed that more than 2 in 5 (40%) of people caring unpaid for family members or friends in Wales feel unable to manage their caring role. 72% of carers have not had any breaks from their caring role during the pandemic, and just 1 in 10 (11%) exhausted unpaid carers in Wales are confident that the support they receive with caring will continue following the Covid-19 pandemic.
Ken Jones, Carmarthenshire Care Forum Chair stated “The last eighteen months have been desperate for unpaid Carers. The pandemic has significantly reduced front line social care services funded or commissioned by the local authority increasing the pressure on Carers. Services were already stretched and under-resourced pre Covid – now things are considerably worse .
“Many of the 24,000 unpaid carers in Carmarthenshire are experiencing loneliness, isolation, anxiety, poverty and much more affecting their well being and quality of life.
“The Covid effect on health and social care will continue to grow with the number of delayed treatments and operations adding to the people needing to be cared for. Unpaid carers will most certainly bear the brunt and a significant share of the pressure “
The recently published Care Inspectorate Wales’ annual report reflected the challenges within the sector and pressure on unpaid carers, in addition to the need for Local Authorities to improve their approach.
Gillian Baranski, Chief Inspector at Care Inspectorate Wales said “Recruitment and retention of staff was one of social care’s biggest worries.”
The report itself highlighted “We found some services had to be reduced during the pandemic. As a consequence many people were waiting for the care and support they required. This was particularly evident in relation to domiciliary support and reablement services [care in the home] and has had an increasingly negative impact on unpaid carers.”
“Whilst we did see innovative practice in response to the needs of carers in some areas, assessment and support for carers remained an area for improvement in most of the local authorities we visited.”
The UK Government recently launched plans for a new 1.25% health and social care tax to be introduced across the UK to pay for reforms to the care sector and NHS funding in England.
However a number of leading Disability charities have criticised the move. With most of the new funding put aside for the NHS for the first three years, there are claims the fund ignores working age people and the support they need to live their every day lives.
On 14th September Welsh Government released a statement outlining a £48m Social Care fund for services in Wales for ‘Service Recovery’.
Deputy Minister for Social Services, Julie Morgan, said “the majority of the funding – £40m – has been allocated to local authorities and will be used to help the social care sector meet the ongoing challenges caused by the pandemic”
We approached Carmarthenshire County Council and asked what they expected from the WG support and to outline their strategy for dealing with the care crisis. Carmarthenshire County Council refused to make a specific comment, instead referring to their recent press release on the subject.
