It’s crackers to neglect carers

THERE’S a group of people without whom the NHS would fall apart. They are not doctors, or nurses. The job they do is rarely acknowledged, yet they go about it with quiet patience and commitment.

I’m talking about the estimated six million individuals who dedicate their lives to looking after vulnerable loved ones.

These carers are an unimaginably precious resource. Their unpaid work saves the UK £87 billion a year — not far off the total spent on the NHS.

And yet many of them are among our oldest and most vulnerable citizens. A report by the charity Age UK estimates that one in seven of the ‘oldest old’ — people in their 80s and older — are carers themselves.

That’s nearly half a million in their 80s and 90s. And the burden on them is immense.

People providing high levels of care are twice as likely to be permanently sick or disabled as the general population. The work they do is not just physically demanding, but emotionally draining.

Yet getting respite care for them is incredibly hard. They have to be near collapse first.

Indeed, studies have shown that the single most common reason cited as forcing carers to breaking point is the bureaucracy of accessing benefits and NHS care.

Given that the welfare state would collapse overnight without them, the way we neglect them is not just cruel, but crackers.