Building the care skill set of unpaid carers

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In the United Kingdom, there are currently around 13.6 million unpaid family carers looking after older, ill and/or disabled adults. This number increases by 6000 people daily and over 2 million people yearly. People aged 55 years and over make up 46% of all unpaid carers and 23% of them are older than 65. Being an unpaid carer means that people must acquire a whole new skill set, which can include challenging tasks like avoiding pressure sores, administering medication and dealing with distressed behavior. Several studies in the past two years have shown that many unpaid carers suffer from poorer mental and physical health resulting from the pressure and stress associated with being a carer. Often they feel unsupported, lonely and not experienced enough to tackle care tasks. A lack of easily accessible information and support on practical care tasks makes the situation even worse. Through this project we want to support unpaid carers by making available high quality, reliable, and understandable guidance on how to tackle everyday care tasks. There are already many organisations and initiatives that provide some information and support to unpaid carers. But there is not yet one solution that pools practical, evidence based advise in one place to help carers build their skill set. Ideas to tackle the problem include the development of an app/website with easy explainers focusing on common care challenges and a community of 'care partners' to provide answers to questions in a forum.