Carer friendly practices
Developing services to support carers
We know that family or unpaid carers are often more unwell than the general population, as a direct result of their caring role. However, carers may neglect their own health because they find it simply too difficult to visit their GP. Changes to the way that services are provided to carers, even relatively small ones, can make a big difference.
Making it easier for carers to access health services means that better and timely services can be provided to both the cared for person and the carer themselves.
Changes to the practice can be sub-divided into two categories: firstly, changes to the routine services that the practice offers to all patients to take into account the circumstances of carers, and, secondly, new services which are specifically targeted at carers.
These changes are more likely to occur if two things happen:-
i. All practice staff have undergone training in carer awareness.
ii. Practices appoint a carer specialist or champion to take ownership of the carers register and propose and monitor the implementation of carer friendly policies and procedures. It is common practice for GPs and nurses, in particular, to have specialist roles within a practice, to improve the quality of services offered to its patients. These are often related to medical conditions, such as diabetes, or to particular groups of patients, for example the elderly. It may be appropriate to consider carers as being a specialism.
A note of caution is appropriate here. If (ii) is implemented without (i), there is a danger that carers issues will not be ‘owned’ by all staff and will be seen as exclusively the concern of the specialist.
Islington PCT is one of those which has provided carer awareness training to Primary Health Care Team staff in conjunction with its local Carers’ Centre.
