Key facts and asks for mental health carers
The Princess Royal Trust for Carers has issued some key facts about mental health carers, highlighting the main issues and difficulties they face, as well as providing a set of recommendations for policy makers, outlining what we are working to achieve.
Key Facts
The key facts reveal just how common it is to care for a loved one with a mental health condition and detail the particular difficulties and issues that mental health carers have to cope with, such as:
- Unpredictable behaviour and personality changes in the people they care for
- The stigma of mental illness, which can act as a barrier to carers receiving the support and help they need
- Confidentiality and information-sharing conflicts with mental health professionals, who may use patient confidentiality as a reason to ignore a carer's experience and expertise
- Lack of specialised respite
5 Key Facts on Mental Health Carers (164 KB)
Key Asks
Our full policy stance and key asks for mental health carers is available below. Among the recommendations, we call on the government to:
- Ensure services routinely identify and support carers when someone first accesses mental health services; particularly in the case of young carers
- Provide mental health carers with information and training to care effectively
- Ensure each carer has their own written care plan and/or Carers Assessment
- Promote the involvement of mental health carers in training and selection of mental health staff locally
- Provide substantial respite to mental health carers in every area
Key Asks for Mental Health Carers (155 KB)
These changes are aimed at helping both service users and carers and enabling mental health carers to make informed choices about the level of care they can safely provide.
