Being a Carer
Who is a Carer?
The term carer can cause confusion as it can often be associated with paid employment as a carer or claiming carers allowance. Yet, carers who are able to claim carers allowance make up a small proportion of the population of those providing support to someone. Current statistics show that 1 in 10 people are carers at the moment with it being predicted that with the aging population, every 3 in 5 people will have a caring role at some point in their life.
Carers have a unique role in the lives of the people they care for. They enable the people they care for to remain at home safely, independently and with dignity. The care they provide saves the Scottish taxpayer more than £10 billion a year – the equivalent cost of another NHS.
In Scotland, new legislation was passed in 2016. This new law recognises the difficulty in identifying carers and has minimised confusion about what it means to be a carer by removing words such as ‘substantial’ and ‘regular’ from the definition. This makes the definition more inclusive and less restrictive and so now considers a wide range of carers who previously did not fall into the bracket of providing regular and substantial care such as those who are caring and working or studying:
Under the Carers (Scotland) Act 2016:
‘A carer is someone who provides or intends to provide care for another person because of a long term condition or disability’
- You can be caring for someone for ANY amount of hours
- You do NOT need to be living in the same house as the person you are caring for
- The person you are caring for does NOT need to be in receipt of a social care package
- You as the carer, do NOT need to be in receipt of carers allowance
Our Mission Statement
The management board is responsible for keeping North Lanarkshire Carers Together focussed on its aims and objectives and for safeguarding its values and managing all aspects of its business.
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