Mind the gap - understanding the needs of South Asian unpaid carers
Download (PDF 2.15 MB)Summary of report content
Frimley Health and Care, Frimley Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead have secured funding to further understand and assess the needs of South Asian Carers in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead and have approached Healthwatch Windsor, Ascot and Maidenhead to undertake this work. They developed two surveys and ran focus groups. They spoke to 28 people.
The majority of carers are caring for adults and over 50% defined the cared for as a family member. Most carers are women (86%) and over the age of 50. Over half haven’t registered as a carer with their GP and a similar proportion haven’t had a local authority carers assessment undertaken.
Over 86% of unpaid carers report that they are unable to access carer support services. Reasons for not doing so include:
- limited information available to carers of what support is available and/or that information is not reaching them
- Where unpaid carers are aware of services available, they are unable to access due to issues such as lack of respite and travel costs.
Carers report that they have unmet needs and require support with; meeting their own health needs, accessing respite, advice and information on support available and getting help with prescriptions/medications.
Unpaid carers generally don’t define themselves as carers. They need:
- Women only, culturally specific places to meet and support each other that are free to access and easy to get to (supported travel)
- Help with signposting to services
- Information about services available to them
- Help with language skills
- Help with IT skills and access to IT resources
- Support and advice in respect to health and wellbeing
- Respite
The report contains 7 recommendations.