Prelims

Half Title Page

Family Carers and Caring

Endorsements

Family Carers and Caring: What It's All About makes a major contribution to the current debate about the future of social care in the UK and most importantly offers the basis for a new and evidenced narrative about how we identify, recognise and value the family carers who form the bedrock of our somewhat tired welfare state. Social care promised by Boris Johnson on the steps of 10 Downing Street was a historic moment to reconfigure our care system and thereby to formally recognise, support but not exploit the contributions of family cares. Delivery was delayed, but that delay creates opportunity and Family Carers and Caring offers the perfect brief for reforms to come, acknowledging and evidencing the critical role that family carers will play within a redesigned care system.

Family carers, unpaid, often over-burdened and poorly understood, underpin both the UK health and the social care systems. The value of their care is estimated at £193 billion a year, but there is growing evidence of multiple health and financial inequalities as carers care for longer and many struggle to balance complex care at home with employment and wider family responsibilities. Family care of necessity has become a 21st-century issue for local and national government. 1 in every 5 of NHS staff now have family caring responsibilities. The UK workforce needs to reverse the early retirement of so many workers in middle age, many of whom have acquired new caring responsibilities. We are seeing the rise of young carers whose own education and career prospects are at risk because they are neither recognised nor supported sufficiently. Additionally, and importantly, the NHS is also reconfiguring the role of hospitals and transferring health care and recovery back into family homes.

The UK, of course, like its international counterparts, has seen multiple strategies and new legislation over the past two decades, intended to rebrand social care; to integrate health and care and to personalise support to meet individual needs. But family carers have not achieved the ‘parity of esteem’ envisaged by the Care Act and post-COVID financial challenges mean that fewer carers are now receiving support. An estimated 500,000 people await assessments or the delivery of agreed packages of support from their local authorities and families are still selling family homes to pay for care. But even allowing for the very real financial pressures on all public services, we can do better and Family Carers and Caring offers strategic analysis; creative forward thinking and a new understanding of what 21st-century care and support could look like.

As the authors note in the introduction to Chapter 2 of their book, the profile of the population of family carers in the UK is dynamic, diverse and constantly shifting. We are beginning to see the ‘big conversations’ which have already taken place in a number of our European neighbours around how we define and therefore how we deliver social care and support and the role of family carers in a changing society. The House of Lords Adult Social Care Committee recently entitled a report on the state of UK social care as ‘A Gloriously Ordinary Life’ in recognition of powerful stories from family carers and those they support who wanted to reimagine care to actively support ‘ordinary lives’ and 21st-century preferences and ambitions. As a long-term personal carer myself, I can only hope that this book is read, discussed and shared across local and national government, the NHS and of course the UK's rich constellation of community organisations as we work together to define an ‘ordinary life’ for the extraordinary people who are family carers and how we can progressively and strategically work together to achieve it.

Dame Philippa Russell DBE, Vice-President, Carers UK

This excellent book presents a wide-ranging, informative and accessible discussion of what family care and carers are ‘all about’, with conceptual and theoretical material illustrated by case studies. Drawing on their extensive knowledge of the subject, Milne and Larkin argue for change in the place of family care within social care systems. This book will be a valuable resource for a range of students and researchers in social work, social policy and related subjects.

Professor Liz Lloyd, Senior Research Fellow, School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol

Title Page

Family Carers and Caring

What It’s All About

By

Alisoun Milne

University of Kent, UK

And

Mary Larkin

The Open University, UK

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Copyright Page

Emerald Publishing Limited

Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK

First edition 2023

Copyright © 2023 Alisoun Milne and Mary Larkin. Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.

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No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters' suitability and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to their use.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-80043-349-6 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-80043-346-5 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-80043-348-9 (Epub)

Dedication

Alisoun dedicates the book to her husband Simon, Mary dedicates the book to her eldest granddaughter Alice. We would also both like to dedicate the book to those who do caring now and will become carers in the future.

List of Figures and Tables

About the Authors

Alisoun Milne is Professor Emerita of Social Gerontology and Social Work at the University of Kent, UK. She has been involved in work on family caring for over twenty years; this included being a member of the independent advisory committee, the Standing Commission on Carers. Alisoun has written widely on care and caring issues and is embedded in national and international care-related research and practice networks. Up until 2021, Alisoun contributed to undergraduate and postgraduate social work programmes that included teaching on family care and carers.

https://www.kent.ac.uk/social-policy-sociology-social-research/people/1950/milne-alisoun-j

@alisounjm

Mary Larkin is Professor of Care, Carers and Caring at the Open University, UK. She has extensive experience of carer research and working with carers and carers organisations. Not only does she publish widely but her expertise in family caring has led to her membership of national and international bodies, committees and commissions. Mary's many years of teaching in higher education has included the development of courses about, and for, carers. Within the Open University she has spearheaded strategies to support students and staff who are carers.

https://www.open.ac.uk/people/mml5