Independent living and the debate on informal care

Abstract

Over the past ten to fifteen years, ‘informal carers’ — that is, people who provide unpaid assistance to members of their family, or to friends or neighbours, who are elderly and/or experience physical, sensory or intellectual impairment — have been identified both as a social group and as a public issue. Community care policies have never been simply about making services available to people in their own homes as an alternative to institutional care; unpaid assistance given by family and friends has always been seen as a major source of providing help. However, this contribution has increased in both practical and policy significance in recent years and the key importance which the Griffiths Report, the White Paper Caring for People and subsequent policy guidance all attach to informal carers came at the end of a decade during which considerable public and professional attention was paid to the issue.