It is indefensible and morally wrong to keep these people in poverty so I went about setting up this website to hopefully shame the government into taking action to reward one of the hardest working groups of people I know by providing them with an income that reflects the hard work they do.

We Carers come to expect the government and its various Ministers to ignore our plea for a realistic income but it also seems to be the case when it comes to the 2 main charities that claim to represent us. Carers UK and the Princess Royal Trust for Carers continue to ignore us when we say we want pressure put on government to provide a fair income similar to Foster Carers who receive vastly more financial reward for something they choose to do, Carers on the whole are forced into a life of Caring, there IS no choice normally when it comes to Caring.

It's WAS stated that 6 million Carers save this country over £87 BILLION POUNDS a year, enough to fund a second National Health Service. After investigating this I found that this is not strictly true. The way the numbers were arrived at are spurious to say the least. A recent report by Dr Lisa Buckner and Professor Sue Yeandle of the University of Leeds used statistics that are not reliable. For instance "6 million Carers" comes from a question asked in the last census which was-

Do you look after or give any help or support to family members, friends or neighbours or others because of: long-term physical or mental ill-health or disability or problems related to old age?

This could include someone that is not really 'a carer' (example? Someone who 'looks after' a relative with the mildest form of asthma OR someone with gout) The question is vague and totally useless for assessing the amount of 'Carers' There could be a case of SOME charities are manipulating the question into fitting what they want people to believe.

At present there are around 3 to 4 million disabled people claiming disability related benefits/allowances, if you were to assume each one of these people had one Carer then that falls way below the stated 6 to 7 million Carers. There would need to be the same amount of disabled people NOT claiming any disability related benefits/allowances to bring it up to these levels!!! Highly unlikely as I am sure you will agree?


Also, as for "£87 billion pounds saved each year"? This is also a 'questionable' amount. This is arrived at by working from a set hourly rate of £14.50 an hour. Many 'paid' carers receive much less than that, some get a mere £7.50 an hour for the care provision they provide or just minimum wage levels. An average hourly rate should have been used for a more realistic total.
How ANYONE can have faith in these absurd figures on this latest report baffles me. It DOES show how inept and uninformed even 'professional' people are when it comes to Carers.....or it could be deliberate falsification to play 'the numbers' game.
I would rather have accurate HONEST figures showing how many Carers there are and how much money we save the UK.

Most Carers are living in poverty, social isolation and poor health and you can understand why we Carers are a little miffed at politicians and charities alike. Around 40 years Carers UK has been in existence and our lives have not improved very much at all. The Chief Executive at Carers UK draws a handsome salary or around £60.000+ a year, compare that to a Carers yearly income of about £2376, no holidays, no social life and a feeling of nothing ever changing till either they or the person they care for gets better or dies, fun life-style isn't it?

UK Carers wants Carers Allowance to be around in years to come, at present that isn't likely to be the case, there is a movement to scrap Carers Allowance and force Carers onto job search or workfare schemes while being replaced in the home by a telemonitoring system, one that also could cause people to LOOSE disability related benefits. Who is leading this charge? Why CARERS UK AND THEIR NEW 'PARTNERS' that's who.

It is now high-time Carers went back to what they do well, and that is facing down those people that are keeping them in poverty.