14th January 2019
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UK-wide unpaid carers research project announced
Future Care Capital has announced that it will be working in partnership with the global public opinion and data company, YouGov, to conduct a national study on unpaid carers.
There is a pressing need to better understand the role of unpaid carers. Carers UK estimate that by 2037 the number of carers will increase to 9 million [1]. Unpaid carers are a growing group within our society. Future Care Capital aims to complement the existing evidence about unpaid carers and encourage further debate about what action should be taken to support them.
This research project will focus on identifying gaps in support and seeks to understand the views of unpaid carers – involving them in a structured exercise to help determine their education and training needs.
Future Care Capital is a health and adult social care charity committed to using the insight gathered through research to advocate practical policy ideas that will help deliver better outcomes. The charity’s beneficiaries are those in receipt of care. Future Care Capital is also concerned about wider issues that affect unpaid carers. Carers’ strain is increasingly common as individuals struggle to balance their needs with those they care for. Although this research project will focus on educational and training needs, it is always important to be mindful of the wider factors that place stress and demand on unpaid carers.
Legal & General, with whom Future Care Capital has developed a wider partnership, are supporting the project and have donated funding to support the research. This is a charitable project and the research findings will be used by Future Care Capital to advocate on behalf of its beneficiaries.
We are delighted to be working with YouGov on this wide-ranging research project and thanks must also go to Legal & General for their kind donation. As a health and adult social care charity, we are keen to build on the knowledge base that already exists about unpaid carers, young and old, to gather a deeper understanding of their ambitions and what educational support they want to access at every stage of their life. In our policy report ‘Securing the Future’ we called on the Government to recognise the economic contribution of carers to the overall economy. We hope that the forthcoming adult social care Green Paper outlines options to develop a better ‘work-life-care’ balance for those individuals who are committed to caring for others. There have been regular calls for a frank debate about the role of unpaid carers in our society, this project will attempt to add weight to calls that something must be done to better value the contribution unpaid carers make to our society. We look forward to publishing the research findings in April. Joel Charles, Director of Government Relations and Impact
