Share your views on the draft Carers Strategy 2023-27
The City of London Carers Strategy 2023-27 Public Consultation – survey closes on 3 May 2023.
The City of London Corporation has launched a new public consultation on the draft Carers Strategy 2023-27. We want to hear your views to make sure we deliver the best strategy for the City of London’s unpaid carers.
Our vision is that unpaid carers in the City of London, of all ages, are recognised for their valuable role, given the respect they deserve and supported through the complexities of the caring journey.
Please review the draft strategy in the PDF and then take a moment to complete the survey.
Why does this strategy look different?
The City Corporation is making strategies more accessible to residents. The content is more focussed, setting out the current context the strategy sits in. This includes any challenges to and opportunities for change. The focus is on the vision, outcomes and actions for the duration of the strategy.
Instead of a lengthy PDF document the strategy will now be shared in a user-friendly format. We are still working on the template for 'Adults' strategies.
An unpaid carer is anyone who, without being paid, cares for a friend or family member who due to illness, disability, a mental health problem or an addiction cannot cope without their support. Caring for someone may take up a few hours each week, or a carer may be caring for 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Find out more about what a carer is [LINK].
Chief executive of Carers UK, Helen Walker, said: “Many of us don’t expect to become an unpaid carer but the reality is two in three of us will do it in our lifetimes”. Research by the charity also discovered that:
- By the time we reach 50, we have a 50:50 chance of being a carer.
- Women are more likely to become carers and provide more hours of unpaid care than men.
- More women than men provide high intensity care at ages when they would expect to be in paid work (Petrillo and Bennett, 2022).
There are 496 unpaid carers in the City of London (Census 2021) and these carers contribute substantially to society as whole. It is estimated that carers save the economy £132 billion a year (NHIR 2022).
- Focus groups with unpaid carers.
- Attending City Connections and Carer Connections meetings and drop-ins in person, where possible.
- Extensive advertisement of the consultation page and questionnaire.
- Stakeholder engagement, which includes:
- Health services
- Social services
- Community and volunteer sector
- Relevant City of London Corporation committees and groups
- Unpaid carers
The consultation will support the production of the strategy action plan.
Please review the draft strategy in the PDF earlier in the page and then take a moment to complete the survey.
If you would like to be involved in focus groups on the strategy, please provide your email address when asked as part of the questionnaire. The focus groups will be organised for both face-to-face and online discussions.
All feedback will be used to produce the final version of the Carers Strategy 2023 –2027.
The final version will need to be signed off by the Community and Children’s Services Committee in June 2023 and published on the City of London Corporation Website.
The action plan for the strategy will continue to be populated with stakeholders, and will be reviewed by unpaid carers, community partners, Adult and Children’s social care and Commissioning every 12 weeks through the ‘Carer Strategy Implementation Group’.