Carers Rights Day 2022

Thursday 24 November is Carers Rights Day and this year’s theme is ‘Caring Costs’. The Carers Centre are organising a meeting with the Sussex Health and Care Partnership (NHS) to discuss how to affect real changes to carers’ lives in Brighton and Hove.

Representatives from our Carers Voice Group will be joining the meeting to ensure that Carers Voices are at the heart of discussions.

The basis for the meeting is research undertaken in 2021 and 2022, which made the following recommendation to the NHS in Sussex

1. Incentives to identify carers: Clear messaging to professionals in primary/community care, mental health services and acute settings around the benefits of identifying Carers

2. Introduction of mandatory carer awareness: To support increased carer identification, training should be provided to NHS staff during induction and at regular, refresher intervals

3. Centralised carer records: carer data should be accurately recorded with consent, consistency and with clear purpose on how it will benefit the carer to share information

4. Reduce negative impact on caring on mental health: A priority for any newly funded carer support work should be to address carers emotional wellbeing

5. Regular and consistent messaging: carers need to feel informed, recognised and valued in NHS communications

6. Road map for service users: Concise, easy-to-read navigation of health services across Sussex is needed

We will be asking NHS where they are with their commitment to these recommendations and we want your help to influence the priority recommendations from the research.