Paid care services need to be available and affordable for low-income families to solve unpaid care crisis, charity warns

As chronic and degenerative conditions become more common, the intensity of care is increasing.

The number of people caring for loved ones without pay is expected to increase sharply over the next decade. If the rise in carers only matches population growth, by 2035 an additional 400,000 people in Britain will be providing care for the sick, elderly, and disabled for ten or more hours per week – an 11.3 percent increase from today’s figures. Among these new carers, 130,000 will be of working age. Including those caring for less than ten hours per week, the total number of carers would rise by 990,000, a 10.6 percent increase compared to current numbers.

These were the findings of a recent analysis by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF). The charity’s ‘The Future of care needs: a whole systems approach’ report also found that as chronic and degenerative conditions become more common, the intensity of care is increasing. The rate of very high-intensity care – 35 hours or more per week – is now higher than it was a decade ago.

The charity warns that these changes point to a future where care needs are longer, more intensive, and complex. To meet the challenges posed by the growing demand for informal carers, the JRF is urging the government to provide real choices within the care system. This would involve making paid care services more accessible and affordable, particularly for those on low incomes and with limited savings.

The report also calls for employers to allow people to care, through flexible working or paid care leave. Additionally, the benefits system for carers and parents should provide carers with the resources and dignity to do the job well. The charity highlights the importance of strengthening local social networks, enabling communities to more easily offer and receive informal support.

The JRF suggests that the first step the government should take to address the unpaid care crisis is to establish a cross-government Future Care Needs Taskforce, which would be chaired by the Department of Health and Social Care. Its role would be to plan the expansion of paid care services and to enhance the capacity of families and social networks to provide care through paid leave, more generous carer benefits, and community support.

Abby Jitendra, principal policy advisor for care, family and relationships at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, stated: “Our already strained paid care system is unfit to meet growing and changing care needs. A million more of us will be caring despite inadequate support which leaves unpaid carers at a higher risk of poverty.”

Introducing a taskforce would give people real choice, as care needs grow, “over how to meet their or their loved one’s care needs,” said Jitendra.