Quality statement 1: Identifying carers | Supporting adult carers | Quality standards

Quality statement

Carers are identified by health and social care organisations and encouraged to recognise their role and rights.

Rationale

It is important to identify carers at the earliest opportunity and to encourage them to recognise their role and rights. This will help ensure that they are recognised as partners in the care of the person they are supporting and can access any advice and support they may need. By adopting a proactive approach, health and social care organisations can support practitioners to identify carers and encourage more carers to self‑identify and seek support. Recording details about carers, with their consent, will enable these details to be shared with other practitioners to help inform the planning of local support and services for carers.

Quality measures

Structure

a) Evidence that health and social care organisations have strategies, policies and processes to identify carers and encourage them to recognise their role and rights.

Data source: Local data collection, for example, audit of local policies and processes.

b) Evidence that health and social care practitioners understand their responsibilities under the Care Act 2014 to identify carers.

Data source: Local data collection, for example, carer awareness training records.

c) Evidence of local arrangements to encourage carers to self‑identify and seek support.

Data source: Local data collection, for example, evidence of publicity and information sharing initiatives to support NHS England and NHS Improvement's supporting carers in general practice: a framework of quality markers.

d) Evidence that health and social care organisations have systems to record and share details about carers, with their consent.

Data source: Local data collection, for example, audit of systems such as a carer's register to support NHS England and NHS Improvement's supporting carers in general practice: a framework of quality markers.

Outcome

a) Number of carers known to local health and care organisations.

Data source: Local data collection, for example, a carer's register, NHS Digital's Short and Long Term (SALT) data collection. Local health and social care organisations should share data to ensure they have an accurate assessment of the number of known carers.

b) Average time it takes for carers to recognise their caring role.

Data source: Local data collection, for example, carer registration information and survey of carers. National data is collected in the Carers UK State of Caring survey.

What the quality statement means for different audiences

Health and social care organisations (such as general practices, hospitals, community services, local authorities, and private and voluntary sector care providers) ensure that policies, processes and systems are in place to identify carers and encourage them to recognise their role and rights, and to record and share their details. Health and social care organisations ensure that staff are aware of the importance and value of identifying carers. Health and social care organisations also work in partnership with other organisations in the community to encourage carers to recognise their role and rights through publicity and information sharing initiatives.

Health and social care practitioners (such as GPs, doctors, nurses, community pharmacists, mental health practitioners, social workers, allied health professionals, and care and support staff) use every opportunity to identify carers and ask people with care and support needs whether anyone gives them help or support. When a carer is identified, health and social care practitioners encourage them to recognise their role and rights and offer them the opportunity to have confidential conversations about their own needs separately from the person they are supporting. Health and social care practitioners record details of carers in local systems and share this information with other practitioners involved in providing care and support, with the carers' consent.

Commissioners (such as clinical commissioning groups, local authorities and NHS England) ensure that in the commissioning of services, opportunities are taken to identify carers and to encourage them to recognise their role and rights. Commissioners work with providers to ensure that systems are in place to record and share details of carers.

People providing unpaid care to someone aged 16 or over with health or social care needs are identified by health and social care practitioners and encouraged to recognise their role as a carer and their right to support and advice.

Source guidance

Supporting adult carers. NICE guideline NG150 (2020), recommendations 1.2.11 and 1.2.13

Definitions of terms used in this quality statement

Identify carers

Health and social care organisations ensure practitioners:

Use every opportunity to identify carers, including GP appointments, flu jab appointments, home visits, outpatient appointments, transfer to and from hospital, social care and other needs assessments, including admission and discharge assessments and planning meetings.
Ask people with care and support needs whether anyone gives them help or support, apart from paid practitioners. Avoid making assumptions about who might be providing their care and take into account that:
- other people offering help or support may not be family members or may not live with the person
- there may be more than 1 person involved in caring.
Record details about carers who have been identified (with their consent).

Health and social care organisations ensure practitioners understand that:

Carers themselves may not ask for support from certain professionals, for example GPs, because they may not view support for carers as being part of that professional's role.
Some people may not view themselves as a carer because:
- becoming a carer can be a gradual process, and carers may not recognise the changing nature of their relationship with the person they support
- carers may prefer to continue identifying primarily as a husband, wife, partner, sibling, parent, child or friend, rather than as a carer
- carers often become engulfed by competing demands, including working and caring, and as a result may overlook their own needs as a carer and may not seek support
- the person being supported may not accept that they have care and support needs
- the carer does not live with the person or the person has moved away from home, for example into supported living or residential care.

[NICE's guideline on supporting adult carers, recommendations 1.2.2, 1.2.3, 1.2.4 and 1.2.6]

Encourage carers to recognise their role and rights

Health and social care organisations ensure practitioners:

provide information to carers so that they know:
- about their right to a carer's assessment, what this is, and the benefits of having one
- how to obtain a carer's assessment
- that some support may be means tested
- that they can still access community support without formal assessment
encourage carers to recognise their caring role and seek support, explaining the benefits for both them and the person they care for, including:
- the carer's role and contribution can be acknowledged, and their support needs addressed and
- carers can share valuable knowledge about the person they care for, which helps practitioners provide the right care and support.

Health and social care organisations encourage carers to recognise their role and rights by using descriptions that they will relate to and including details of where to find further information and advice, through:

publicity campaigns involving local community services, for example posters and leaflets in GP surgeries, libraries and pharmacies
digital communications, social media and online forums that engage with carers
partnerships with community pharmacies, local carer support organisations and carer groups, for example in hospital settings
partnerships with local community organisations who can help disseminate information more widely, such as further education colleges, sports centres and supermarkets.

[NICE's guideline on supporting adult carers, recommendations 1.2.1, 1.2.5 and 1.2.11]

Equality and diversity considerations

Health and social care practitioners should avoid making assumptions about who might be providing care based on their gender or their relationship to the person being cared for.

Health and social care practitioners should recognise that it may be more difficult for carers in some groups to identify as a carer and to seek support due to cultural and communication barriers. This includes young people, older people, people whose first language is not English, black and minority ethnic groups, and people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.