Creating a Carer friendly workplace
According to the NHS Staff Survey results 2021 around 1:3 of our NHS people are working carers, many of whom are aged between 45-64 and so are likely to be amongst some of our experienced and skilled staff.
A carer is someone who provides unpaid care and support to a family member or friend due to their disability, health condition, frailty, mental health problem, addiction or other health and care need. If you are looking after a child, including your own child, who has special physical or mental health support needs, then you are also a carer.
Based on the size of our own workforce, it’s highly likely you will have colleagues who are juggling the role of a carer with their role at the trust and as an organisation we want to look at ways to help and support those colleagues.
We understand the pressures that some of our carers might face – typically;
- 4 in 5 unpaid Carers are currently providing more care than before lockdown
- 78% of Carers reported that the needs of the person they care for have increased recently
- Most Carers (64%) have not been able to take any breaks at all in the last six months
- More than half (58%) of Carers have seen their physical health impacted by caring through the pandemic, while 64% said their mental health has worsened.
The first step in the process is to identify which of our staff are carers, so we can work together to look at how we can best support them to juggle their responsibilities.
We also want to reassure staff that any information provided will remain confidential between yourself and your line manager and will be used solely for the purpose of providing the relevant support mechanisms.
if you wish to register your working carer status, you should do this via the ESR self service portal. You can identify yourself as a working carer under the My compliance and competency tab following the guide. This only needs to be done for your primary substantive assignment, not any Bank positions. When you go to select a competency please click: NHS|MAND|Carer Awareness| and submit this for approval.
Your reporting manager will receive a notification from ESR which they will need to approve within 8 days.
