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	TX: 26.04.05 - Carers Part One PRESENTER: JOHN WAITE听

	Downloaded from www.bbc.co.uk/radio4 THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE 麻豆约拍 CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY. WHITE And on Call You and Yours today at around half past twelve we're putting the charity Carers UK under the spotlight. There are six million carers in the UK, and that's one in eight of the adult population, and Carers UK campaigns for them. It's published its own manifesto, detailing what it wants to see to improve life for carers. Imelda Redmond is its chief executive. Imelda first of all, I mean could you just set out the key demands in your manifesto? REDMOND Well the key demands in our manifesto ask that the next government should make sure that no carer lives in poverty, that we look after carers' health - many carers are in poor health. We also know that many carers suffer from social isolation, we want to make sure that the next government takes this on board, identifies carers very early on and provides the support that they need. WHITE Let's just unpick some of those a bit. Now let's start with money. It's perhaps a given that carers are fairly stretched but what are your substantive proposals to put this right, I mean is it just about improving the carer's allowance? REDMOND No our anti-poverty campaign is much broader than that. We believe that carers should be enabled to continue to work should they wish to or at least work part time, if that's want they want to. Many carers are forced to give up work because the other support to the person they look after just isn't there and they can't leave the person alone. So we're looking for a whole raft of employment rights around flexible working, tax credits, approaches to return to work agenda as we've seen for parents of children. But also we think that for carers who really can't work or wish to stay at home and look after their sick or disabled relatives then the levels of benefits at the moment are just too low and they're forcing many people into poverty. WHITE If you were a political party I'd ask you if you'd costed this - have you? REDMOND Well we haven't costed each of those proposals, we just don't have those sorts of resources to put economists behind these things, but we do know that carers save the state in the region of 拢57 billion every year. We know that if we have economically active families then they are less of a drain on the resources of the whole society. We know that carers actually make a huge contribution across the board to communities, as well as their own families. WHITE For these things to work, for people to be able to go back to work, there would need to be more respite care, this is something I know you've campaigned for, for a long time anyway, but there are improvements in this area aren't there? REDMOND There have been improvements in breaks for carers and having a break from caring is absolutely critical to the health and wellbeing of carers and that's very well documented. There has been huge investment in that, however most of those breaks are focused on a very short break - perhaps two hours a week, maybe three hours a week. What we really need in order to face the future and the huge demographic shift that we're dealing with in this country at the moment, is a huge investment in social care directly to the sick or disabled people in their homes ... WHITE So it's still money? REDMOND It's still money, yes, we need to improve the quality of care that goes into people's homes. WHITE You also want employers to make it easier for carers to work more flexibly. Now of course employers are being asked to do this for all kinds of groups and one can hear them saying - that's all very well but is that my job? REDMOND We are asking employers to look at the introduction of flexible working for carers. And we have been working with a group of employers, about 12 employers formed a group called Employers for Carers, over the last couple of years, and we've been trialling these ideas with them and big companies like BT, Metropolitan Police, British Gas - a whole host of other organisations - have been implementing carer friendly work practices and they are finding that it is improving their bottom line. WHITE Now all the things you're asking for seem to amount to - perhaps I'm oversimplifying this - seem to amount to the carer caring less and the state caring more, I mean is that really what most carers want, didn't most carers if not choose to care accept the responsibility to care? REDMOND Well I think one of the key things that we've got to remember is that we're living in an ageing population, within the next 20 years we're going to have less people under five than we have people over 80. We also have very high rates of employment in this country, all the manifestos talk about more doctors, more nurses, more police, if we want people to remain in work we are going to have to make sure that there is quality care for older people to enable them - to enable carers to retain their employment. WHITE Okay, Imelda Redmond thank you very much for the moment. What do you make of what you've just heard? Are Carers UK saying what you want to hear? Does their manifesto reflect what really matters to you? Is it bold enough? What are the key things they should be campaigning on? You can have your say, we'd also like to hear from employers, we'd like to hear from those people who live with carers, are cared for, and Imelda will be back about half past twelve to hear your comments. Back to the Transcripts homepage Back to the You and Yours homepage The 麻豆约拍 is not responsible for external websites

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