Carers Trust has launched a new campaign, ‘Speak Up For Older Carers’,  to support carers over the age of 60.  Carers Leeds is one of the many carers organisations linked to Carers Trust – we’re a Network Partner and we support this campaign.

There are 1.8 million older carers in the UK and Carers Trust is  saying ‘Where is my Care Co-ordinator?’. Many older carers are looking after their spouse or partner who is sick or disabled and also struggling with their own health needs.  Their caring role needs to be kept as simple and straight forward as possible, to make sure that the cared for person is able to stay at home for as long as possible getting the best possible care. Yet carers report that they are offered appointments that they can’t get to, that they don’t know who to go to for information or advice, they don’t get their phone calls to professionals returned.  There is an appeal to health and social care professionals to make life easier for carers by working more closely together and helping them to overcome some of the frustrations they face – make sure that older carers know who their Care Co-ordinator is and that they are only asked for all the information and detail about the caring role once.

So let’s support older carers and let’s ‘Speak Up For Older Carers’.