Introduction

In this chapter we focus on the unpaid support which service users receive from those close to them – ‘informal carers’ as they have come to be called. Such unpaid ‘caring’ is a complex and highly contentious issue. Over the last 30 plus years, governments and policymakers have placed an increasing stress and reliance on such support. They have emphasised that most of the support that service users receive comes from such informal carers, rather than the paid workforce examined in the last chapter. We are regularly told that ‘There are almost six million unpaid carers of adults in the UK…. Without them, the social care system would collapse’ (Hampshire County Council, 2008, p 65). Here we look at how such arrangements work out in practice, their implications for person-centred support and to what extent they may be consistent with service users’ choice and control over their lives.

The term ‘carers’ or ‘informal carers’ has come to be used particularly in relation to support provided for people by their family, friends and neighbours. Most often, it means support provided by people's families and loved ones. Such ‘caring’ can embrace a very wide range of activities and relationships. It may mean providing support to a sibling, partner or offspring. The need can arise at any time in our lives – from when we are still at school, to our own old age. It may entail some modest help with routine day-to-day tasks like shopping or cleaning, to help with the most intimate activities of daily living ‘twenty four seven’, as some carers put it. The need may arise because of someone's physical, sensory or intellectual impairment, through mental distress, chronic illness or increased physical and mental frailty linked with older age.