It’s Carers Week 2026! 

Once a year, between 8 – 14 June, carer charities and groups come together to raise awareness of the work carers do, what impact caring has on carers and those around them, and what we can do on a societal level to better support them.

The theme this year is “Building Carer-Friendly Communities“, highlighting how communities can better support carers, empowering them and easing the strain of their responsibilities.

I’d like to contribute to this week by talking about my mum’s experience as a carer, and what I believe can be done to better support her and others like her. I have spoken more in-depth on this topic over at Nation Cymru, which you can read here.

My mum has been a carer for both my grandparents for just over a decade, having been made redundant from the Land Registry in 2009, and taking on caring duties for my nan since then, and soon after, for my bampa (grandfather) too. She would be the first to tell you that, while rewarding, it is by no means easy or, as some well-meaning friends have described it, a “career break”.

Caring for loved ones, especially when you live in the same household as them, is your career, one that doesn’t allow you to clock-off at the end of the day, and only comes to an end when the unthinkable happens, and a loved one passes away; a reality my mum had to face earlier this year when my lovely nan passed. An aspect that often gets overlooked is what happens after a carer’s responsiblities come to an end. They’re left with no job, no support, and no structure. This is an area that I believe both the state, local authorities, and communities need to play a much larger role.

Just to note at this point: these are all pipe-dream goals I have to better support carers, rather than completely fleshed out ideas. How they would actually be funded or established, I don’t know; this is just what I would like to see.

The state

The state needs to play its part in providing grief counselling and general mental health support for carers, and this could be explored by joining up the mental health and social care services. Rather than having a carer engage with one system, go through the whole process, only to then have to engage with a completely new system and explain everything they’ve been through, the two should be joined up, with a clear avenue for carers to meet and talk with counsellors who are already up to date on everything the carer has gone through. 

This would ease the burden on the carer of having to relive every little thing in trying to get yet another person to understand. If the carer and the counsellor don’t gel, then they can go to a new counsellor, who would also be informed on what the carer has gone through.

Local authorities

I need to state, at this point, that I’m focusing solely on local authorities in Wales, rather than across the entirety of Great Britain.

Some local authorities during the COVID-19 pandemic provided carers with a one-off £500 grant to support them through that period, as part of a £29 million investment in supporting unpaid carers. While a great initiative, it needs to be brought back in some form, on a regular basis, to better support unpaid carers. Between the cost of living increases due to global conflicts, the previously mentioned pandemic, and Brexit, the current allowance of £86 a week is nowhere near enough to help carers even survive, let alone live a full life outside of their responsibilities.