What is a Carer

Choices for Care

If you would like information and advice about what support is available for carers without going through a full carer’s assessment, please visit our Choices for Care page.

Choices for Care, provides you with online support to help you to identify the support you need. This includes relevant services from the Live Well directory.

You can also choose to submit the information you provide to the Council’s Adult Social Care service, who will then contact you to consider your situation further.

A carer is someone who provides support to family or friends who couldn't manage without this help.

Anyone can become a carer, and carers come from all walks of life, all cultures and can be any age. Many feel that they're doing what anyone would do in the same situation, caring for a mother, father, wife, husband, son, daughter or best friend, for example. Around 3 in 5 people  will be carers at some point in their lives.

There are nearly six million unpaid carers in the UK. You are a carer if you provide unpaid support with day to day living tasks or personal care to a family member or friend such as helping them to wash, get dressed, eat, taking them to appointments, or keeping them company when they feel lonely or anxious.

Those you care for could be ill, frail, disabled, suffer from poor mental health or have a substance or alcohol misuse problem.

Often carers care for more than one person and there may be family situations where, for example, a couple mutually care for each other and there is no main carer.

In Cheshire East, around 40,000 people identify themselves as carers. This does not include the carers of all ages that we’re unaware of, ‘hidden’ from mainstream services and support, either not recognising or choosing not to declare their caring role.

The various pages in this section of the website provide lots of advice and information, and explains what is available to help you in your caring role, including details of services and organisations that can provide this support.

Joint All Age Carers Strategy 2021-2025

Cheshire East Council along with its partners have produced a  Joint carers strategy (PDF, 4.53MB). A joint strategy for carers of all ages in Cheshire East.

Welcome to the All-Age Carers Strategy 2021 – 2025 for Cheshire East. This strategy has been written for and has the support of carers, partners and other key stakeholders across the partnership who want our aims and ambitions to be clear and succinct and offer all carers which include those who are adults, parents, working or young carers an opportunity to live, work, stay connected and be a vital part of their local communities.

The Care Act 2014 defines a carer as:

A “carer” is an adult who provides or intends to provide care for another adult (an “adult needing care”)’ ‘A “young carer” is a person under 18 who provides or intends to provide care for another person.’

Health and social care work effectively in partnership with other providers of services to support carers of all ages in Cheshire East ensuring that their voice is centre stage and that their wellbeing and identified priorities are at the heart of all decisions. To make this real for carers, all the partners work as a team to support them and their families, involving them in service and product design, delivery and evaluation.

The All Age Carers Strategy for 2021-25 will support the shift in social care and health transformation, providing key messages for specific markets and carers. It will start with asking the following questions:

• Who are our carers – demographics
• What support and services are in place at the moment, and what is not available and should be?
• What carers tell us, including the accessibility and quality of services for carers and what they tell us is needed?
• What support and services the council think people will need in the future?

Agreed six priorities

Carers have told us that our priorities should be Health & Wellbeing

• We will work across the place to ensure a diverse offer is available for our carers of all ages to stay healthy, well, active and to have fun • We will ensure carers are supported to have a life outside the caring role, including employment, training, volunteering, keeping in touch with family and friends, relaxation and leisure activities.

Early Support for Carers

• We will work together to ensure access to co-ordinated services that provide the right support at the right time, across all sectors social care, health and communities

Prevention – Carer breaks/Respite

• We will work with our providers and carers to look at how we can offer regular respite in different environments that are suitable to the carer and the cared for • We will explore the range of community breaks available and offer emergency respite when required either in the carers own home or a place of their choice.

Information/Access/Processes

• We will ensure that carers have access to good quality advice and support when they need it: a range of options are available to access information and advice to help build connections.

Employment, Education and Training

• We will offer support for working carers through carer friendly employment, promoted in collaboration with the national Employers for Carers Network • We will ensure that the right specialist resource is available to support social care staff to identify carers and to undertake carer’s assessments as per their statutory duty • We will ensure that staff who carry out assessments for an individual with care and support needs are fully supported and trained to recognise the needs and aspirations of the carer • We will ensure that practitioners who carry out or contribute to carers' assessments have training and skills in that role and access to specialist advice • We will ensure all staff are aware of the benefits of a carer receiving a statutory carer’s assessment.

Young Carers

• We will ensure that young carers are identified at the earliest possible opportunity, so they are able to learn, develop and thrive and to experience a positive childhood • We will offer a life course approach for those who go on to become Adult carers. The Carers Voice is the golden thread in all that we do

Page last reviewed: 14 July 2022