Personalisation: The Beginning Of A New Dawn Or The End Of The Road For Third Sector Support For Carers?

Personalisation has become a key aspiration of adult social care policy in England. Perspectives vary though as its meaning and the extent to which it signals a new paradigm in care. It is being seen as not only relevant to those directly accessing care but also for their carers. Carers’ support is an area in which third sector organisations (TSOs) have traditionally played a significant role, and changes to funding and the expected model of care will therefore potentially have an impact on the third sector. This study explores the issues that arise for TSOs who work with carers from the introduction of personalisation, through interviews with TSOs and public sector commissioners and policy makers

Exemplar models and support for older carers and carers of people with dementia: informing commissioning

In May 2017 NHS England commissioned a project to support its Commitment to Carers programme. The focus of the work was to scope exemplar models of support for older carers, and for carers of people with dementia (of any age). The work took place between May 2017 and March 2018, and included a consultation workshop in February 2018. A full report of the findings is available, but this brief summary has been prepared primarily to give feedback to the people who contributed to the project and shared their experience with us. Our conclusions and recommendations should inform the further development of NHS England’s Commitment to Carers, but more widely they also point to gaps in which new approaches might be further developed and tested, building on the experiences and exemplars discussed

Exemplar models and support for older carers and carers of people with dementia: informing commissioning: Executive Summary

In May 2017 NHS England commissioned a project to support its Commitment to Carers programme. The focus of the work was to scope exemplar models of support for older carers, and for carers of people with dementia (of any age). The work took place between May 2017 and March 2018, and included a consultation workshop in February 2018. A full report of the findings is available, but this brief summary has been prepared primarily to give feedback to the people who contributed to the project and shared their experience with us. Our conclusions and recommendations should inform the further development of NHS England’s Commitment to Carers, but more widely they also point to gaps in which new approaches might be further developed and tested, building on the experiences and exemplars discussed

Seeing the wood for the trees. Carer related research and knowledge: A scoping review

This NIHR-SSCR funded scoping review provides a comprehensive mapping of what is known about carers and caring, and aims to help inform policy, practice and research in relation to carers. The review was undertaken by searching 10 electronic bibliographic databases, supplemented by additional web searches to identify academic research, grey literature and wider knowledge. The analysis adopts a selective thematic approach covering: carer variables - the characteristics of different types of carer and different caring situations; types of care - the nature of needs of the cared for person and the features of the care situation; the impact of caring – resilience and coping, employment and health; and carer support and needs assessment. The final section highlights key messages identified from the review. It found that caring involves all sections and age groups of the population, with people are likely to experience one or more periods of caregiving over their lifetime. The uniqueness of each caring relationship is also highlighted. In relation to types of carers, knowledge about ‘hard to reach’ groups, such as BAME and LGBT carers, remains sparse. Older carers are also relatively invisible in policy and research terms. It found that much of the knowledge about carers identified in the review relates to their characteristics, their lived experience and the nature of their caregiving, with relatively less being known about the effectiveness of interventions to support them. The report concludes by offering suggestions for policy and practice. An appendix provides a bibliography of the 3,434 items identified in review, classified into 17 types of reference

An exploration of the post-caring experiences of former carers

This thesis explores the subjective meaning of the post-caring experience for a range of former carers, and the conditions and consequences of such experiences, using a qualitative, interpretive approach. The research was based on grounded theory and, after a preparatory stage, data was gathered primarily through semi-structured in-depth interviews with thirty-seven theoretically sampled former carers. These interviews were carried out in the East Midlands between February 2000 and June 2001. Other sources of data were interviews with key informants and a research diary. Drawing on research and theoretical models within the disciplines of sociology, social policy, psychology, and politics, the thesis increases the understanding of many different aspects of former carers' lives. Examples of these are the implications of the cessation of caring, their health, the way they reconstructed their post-caring lives, and their experiences of different sources of support. The substantive theory that emerged from the analysis is developed into a theoretical representation of the post-caring experience. This highlights the extensive influence of both caring and its cessation on post-caring experiences, and introduces new concepts into the literature on post-caring life. It argues that former carers' lives are characterized by a postcaring trajectory that has three phases. These are the "post-caring void", "closing down `the caring time"' and "constructing life post-caring". The concept of the "serial carer' is also developed to provide an understanding of the cyclical experience of caring in the lives of the participants. The thesis concludes with recommendations for the enhancement of policy and practice in supporting former carers, and for further research in this area

Caring about student carers

The study's aims are to: - explore how students who are carers experience and manage (OU) study - provide a foundation for further University-wide research in this are

Scoping Carer Research

There is now a wealth of national and international material and research about carers, However, this body of research is currently fragmented and lacks accessibility and utility, rendering finding information about carer research problematic and impeding its capacity to reliably inform future research. The subject of this paper is a scoping review which will –for the first time – provide a comprehensive overview of existing carer-related research and evidence. This 10 month review, which started in March 2016, aims to scope, capture, organise and synthesise existing national and relevant international carer-related evidence and knowledge. In addition to outlining this unique and timely project, this paper provides a reflection on the methodology and analysis along with some of the interim outcomes and their implications