A snapshot of carers' views on the impact of Northamptonshire County Council cuts
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From September to December 2018, Carers' Voice, with the support of Healthwatch Northamptonshire, conducted a survey to gather the views of carers on the services they use and the impact of recent cuts to local adult social care services on carers and the people they care for.
Key findings included: people named Health and Direct Payment as services they used most frequently; in view of the cuts, changes or reduction of services were reported most frequently for Health and Care in the Community; people spoke of the following issues as an impact of the cuts - delays, staff shortages, lack of support, poor communication, transport issues, costs and needs not being met.
Healthwatch Northamptonshire and Carers' Voice made four recommendations around: service providers and commissioners considering how changes to services can disproportionately affect groups such as carers and vulnerable people and how service design and provision should be shaped by the needs of these groups; further work to investigate which service changes affected carers the most; the council considering how they can better communicate with carers, particularly around funding, direct payments and delays; and further work to assess the views of health and care providers about how cuts to the system are impacting on their services for carers.