Our campaign for Carers Week 2025
Thank you to everyone who wrote to their MP asking them to champion equality for carers and to support Carers Week.
Millions of people across the UK provide unpaid care for an ill, older or disabled family member or friend. Their support is crucial to our health and social care systems and worth a staggering £184 billion a year.
Yet, caring can have a profound negative impact on carers’ own lives, and many do not have access to the same opportunities as those without caring responsibilities.
That’s why Carers Week 2025 focussed on ‘Caring About Equality’. Every individual, every community, and every organisation in the UK has a part to play in helping to reduce the negative impacts unpaid carers face, tackling disadvantage, and promoting equality of opportunity for carers.
Government has a key role to play. That’s why this year we called on the UK Government to address the inequalities that carers of all ages currently face by:
- Committing to undertaking coordinated cross-Government action in support of unpaid carers, leading to the delivery of a new National Carers Strategy.
- Improving identification and recognition of carers in all aspects of their lives.
- Addressing the significant financial hardship that too many carers currently face.
- Better supporting carers to juggle paid work with their unpaid caring responsibilities.
- Supporting young and young adult carers by signing and proactively supporting the Young Carers Covenant.