Refreshing the national Carers Strategy – call for evidence

The previous Government’s Carers Strategy – Carers at the heart of 21st Century Families and Communities – set out a vision that by 2018:

'carers will be universally recognised and valued as being fundamental to strong families and stable communities. Support will be tailored to meet individuals’ needs, enabling carers to maintain a balance between their caring responsibilities and a life outside caring, while enabling the person they support to be a full and equal citizen.’

The Government are now prioritising its actions for the next four years to ensure maximum value for money in the context of the current economic climate and in line with a top priority of reducing the national deficit. The Government has now announced its intention to ‘refresh’ the Carers Strategy with a view to producing, before the end of this year, a clear plan of action for 2011 to 2015. This does not mean re-writing the Carers Strategy, but rather that they will develop a plan setting out the key activities upon which the Government – working in partnership with Carers, Local Authorities, the NHS, employers, the voluntary sector and local communities – can focus from April 2011 onwards. In developing the Carers Strategy, the previous Government undertook extensive consultation with carers.

The Government now wishes to  seek your views on the key priorities, supported by evidence of good practice, on what will have the greatest impact on improving carers’ lives in the next four years. The deadline for responses is by the 20 September 2010. The  tight timescale is necessary because of the Government’s Spending Review and planning by Local Authorities, the NHS and others for April 2011 onwards. 

How to make your voice heard:

Click here to download a copy of the existing Carers Strategy 

Click here for more information about the Spending Review

Click here to download the form to have your say (this is a rtf file which can be opened by Word, Notebook, Wordpad and a number of other word processing programmes)