People at the Heart of Care - Adult Social Care Reform White Paper
This week the Department of Health and Social Care released its white paper, 'People at the Heart of Care'.
The White Paper outlines policies that seek to empower unpaid carers. These include:
- Invest at least £5 million to test and evaluate new ways to help people navigate local adult social care systems
- A national website providing information and simple explainers about adult social care reform
- Invest up to £25 million to work with the sector to kick start a change in the services provided to support unpaid carers
- A new obligation for Integrated Care Boards and NHS England to involve carers when commissioning care for the person they care for
- BEIS will introduce a Carer’s Leave entitlement of 5 days of unpaid leave per year for eligible employees
- The Department of Education will amend the school census to include young carers, to raise the visibility of young carers in the school system and increase demographic evidence on the young carer population
- Work with NHS England and the Carers Partnership, formed of the Carers Trust and Carers UK, to produce a social prescribing summary document to be disseminated to local carers organisations, which will upskill staff at carers organisations on social prescribing as an intervention for loneliness, and to increase unpaid carer health and wellbeing
- Work with NHS England and the Carers Partnership to evaluate good practice in social prescribing to reduce unpaid carer loneliness, as well as testing loneliness interventions amongst unpaid carers
- Look to increase the voluntary use of unpaid carer markers in NHS electronic health records by simplifying current approaches to data collection and registration
There is also a commitment to delivering a standalone strategy in 2022. The strategy will focus on the specific health and care needs of people living with dementia and their carers, including looking at dementia diagnosis, risk reduction and prevention and research.
You can read tide member Linda's story in Section 5 page 60, "Empowering those who draw on care, unpaid carers and families"