Building Carer Friendly Communities: Carers Week 2026

A carer is someone who provides unpaid care and support to a family member or friend who has a disability, illness, mental health condition, addiction, or who needs extra help as they grow older.

Recent research by Carers Week suggests that nearly half of the UK adult population - around 24.8 million people - have provided unpaid care to a family member, friend or neighbour at some point in their lives. Caring responsibilities can include helping someone with personal care, like washing and dressing, housework, administration and paperwork, taking someone to hospital and GP appointments, or clinical tasks like giving injections and checking blood pressure.

Care work can be positive and rewarding, and can also have an impact on many aspects of a carers life. Caring for someone can make it difficult to balance responsibilities including school, employment and other relationships, or a carer might neglect their own health and wellbeing to prioritise the person they care for.

As this Carers Week looks at the importance of building carer friendly communities, where carers are recognised, valued and supported, we wanted to highlight the experiences of local carers, and highlight key areas for change.

Experiences of carers in Kingston

Championing the experiences of local people, our recent reports examining the health and care needs of socially isolated, physically disabled adults, the health and care needs of under-5s and their families, and gaps in bereavement services and support have demonstrated common concerns.

Key areas for improvement across engagement projects have included:

• Integrated care and co-ordination across the health and social care system
• Inclusive culturally sensitive services
• Continuity of care
• Communication between services
• Accessibility of information about services and support

In particular, our work with socially isolated, physically Disabled Adults highlighted that carers and Disabled people alike feel excluded from decision making. 

We also heard concerns about significant barriers to participation, including inaccessible public transport, inaccessible venues and businesses, and inadequate and unhygienic public toilets. Barriers to participation for Disabled people leave carers with additional responsibilities, building carer friendly communities requires ensuring that public infrastructure supports rather than hinders independence.

Experiences of carers in south west London

The South West London Integrated Care Board commissioned the six independent Healthwatch organisations in Croydon, Kingston, Merton, Richmond, Sutton, and Wandsworth to gather feedback from service users and their unpaid carers across a variety of adult and paediatric community services.

With key insights drawn from 527 responses, the report finds that across boroughs patients and unpaid carers valued the generally excellent staff and professionalism and most patients and unpaid carers felt that they had received high-quality, compassionate care. Most participants also said that the services - once they had progressed past often long waits for initial care - were timely and responsive.

The report highlights eight key areas around which unpaid carers raised common concerns:

• Communication and information sharing between the service and patients or unpaid carers
• Coordination and information sharing between services
• Involvement of patient and unpaid carers in decision-making
• Wait times
• Continuity of care
• Cultural competency and accessibility
• Support for unpaid carers
• End of life care planning
• Patient independence and A&E visits