Carers Rights Day report: Valuing Carers

Today is Carers Rights Day, an event Carers UK established and organises each year to raise awareness of the rights and entitlements of unpaid carers.

This year’s theme, Recognising Your Rights, is all about empowering you and other Carers to understand your rights and ensure you get the recognition you deserve. You can find out more about Carers Rights Day and your rights as unpaid carers here.

Carers Rights Day reports:

To mark the occasion, Carers UK has today published a new report – Valuing Carers 2021/22, revealing that unpaid Carers in the UK are now providing care worth a staggering £184 billion a year. This huge increase – up by £64.9 billion since 2011 – is because families are providing more care than ever before.

New research from the Centre for Care, builds on three separate reports that were part of the Centre for Care’s Valuing Carers series. These reports highlighted the value of care in England and Wales (£162 billion), Northern Ireland (£5.8 billion), and Scotland (£15.9 billion).

This new research shows there has been a huge increase in the value of unpaid care in the UK – up by £64.9 billion since 2011 – a 29% increase. This increase is because families are providing more hours of care than ever before in all four nations.

The combined NHS budget across the four nations of the UK in 2021/2022 was £189 billion – meaning that carers are providing the value of care equivalent to a second NHS.

This research demonstrates the vital contributions of unpaid caregivers across the UK, illustrating how they save the public purse substantial amounts of money every week, day, and hour throughout the year.

Read the report here.