Carers Week is an annual campaign to raise awareness of caring, highlight the challenges unpaid carers face and recognise the contribution they make to families and communities throughout the UK.
This year, for Carers Week, I worked with MPs on a cross-party basis to advance a two-and-half-year campaign to create a legal right for all of us, to have access to a 'care supporter'.
Regular readers might remember that back in November 2020, I raised heart breaking cases in Parliament of people in care homes who had been prevented access to essential care provided by their family members - often with devastating consequences.
Some of those living with dementia thought they had been abandoned and their family didn’t want to visit anymore. Some questioned why they had 'been put in prison'. Many stopped eating or talking altogether.
In short, the covid regulations which may have stopped some people in care homes from dying with covid, actually meant that some died of isolation instead.
Why? Because family visits have never just been about 'visiting': they are about providing essential care.
Only family members can reminisce about favourite family memories, can hold someone’s hand or comb their hair, or notice the small and subtle changes of a loved one’s weight, health, or well-being.
At the height of the pandemic, paid care workers were allowed into care homes with testing and PPE, but other essential carers, like a friend of a family member, were barred – even when they took the same or stricter precautions.
So this Carers Week, I worked with MPs from other parties to bring dozens of MPs and campaigners together to discuss how this new law would work.
The new law we are proposing would finally give a legal right to care homes residents, and hospital patients, to be accompanied by a care supporter – such as a family member, or close friend.
Those of us behind the Bill believe that an institution - a private care home or the NHS - should never have the right to separate someone from the essential care that a loved one can provide.
After the Bill was introduced in Parliament, we met with the relevant Minister. It’s not clear yet how far the government will support us, but this Carers Week we reached a major milestone: tabling a new law that could create a new right for us all.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here