Comment: simpler system needed for carers

Eric Bright sums up the frustration that many who look after loved ones have with the benefits system when he says: “All this time doing forms it’s just more time I could be spending with my wife.”

For some years now Community Care has been calling for the financial support offered to the UK’s six million carers to be both improved and simplified. The government’s new carers strategy, launched next week to coincide with Carers Week, will hopefully provide the catalyst to do this and come up with practical solutions to other everyday problems.

With the proportion of the population who become carers set to rise dramatically, we need to create a system that works for people such as Eric rather than against them.

See also Personalisation and Carers