Today marks the start of Carers Week. Carers Week is an annual campaign ran by Carers UK to raise awareness of the work done by the more than 6.5 million unpaid carers in the UK who care for a loved one with an illness, disability or other support need.   

Without unpaid carers, our social care system would collapse. Liz has long argued that transforming support for carers must be at the heart of any plan for social care reform. Yet the Government’s plans to “fix the crisis in social care”, by hiking people’s national insurance contributions during a cost of living crisis, will do nothing to support the millions of carers who are seeing their own health and finances suffer because of their caring responsibilities. You can see Liz’s response to the Government’s social care proposals here  

Last year, Liz marked Carers Week by working with local services in Leicester to better identify and support unpaid carers in the city. She wrote about this work in the Leicester Mercury.  

This year, Carers Week is focused on making caring visible, valued and supported.  More details are available here, and if you want to get involved in the activities organised by the Leicestershire and Rutland Carers Centre, please follow this link to find out more information.  

If you are currently looking after a loved one, even just for a few hours a week, help is out there to support you –  visit Help and advice on caring – Carers UK or contact The Carers Centre at 0116 2510999 or enquiries {at} thecarerscentre.org(.)uk