The Caring About Equality report published on the first day of Carers Week, delves deeper into the impacts of caring for current and former carers and explores the disadvantages that carers feel they face relative to people without caring experience.
The report looks specifically at key health and wellbeing issues, finding that:
- 43% of current or former carers – an estimated 10.7 million people – have seen a mental or physical health condition develop or become worse since taking on a caring responsibility for someone. This figure is higher again for current carers at 48%.
- Over half (58%) of current and former carers feel they are at a disadvantage as they are not able to look after their own physical or mental health in the same way as those without caring responsibilities.
- 39% of current and former carers who had a health condition develop or become worse said that being able to take regular breaks from caring would have helped prevent this.
- 40% of current carers said they had postponed or cancelled a medical appointment, test, scan, treatment, or therapy because of caring, with 44% of those cancelling appointments saying they couldn’t find appointments at a time they could attend.
- A higher proportion of female (both current and former) carers said they face disadvantages with their health compared with males (64% compared with 52%).