Kinship Carer Identification

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Monday 23rd February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Tom Collins]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising good cases and good examples that we might like to follow. I also appreciate his having spoken to me beforehand about his experiences with the situation in Northern Ireland.

I would like to share the experiences of Clare. She said:

“I rushed into A&E in a complete panic. I was carrying my two-year-old nephew…who was struggling to breathe. The receptionist barely looked up as she asked me my nephew’s name and date of birth. Her next question filled me with fear: Who are you? As I answered, she looked up and I knew what was coming—a barrage of questions about why I had taken care of this child. Where was his mother? Could I prove that social services knew he was in my care? And—most terrifyingly of all—did I know that the hospital could not treat him without the consent of someone with parental responsibility? He was struggling to breathe, his face white as a sheet and his chest heaving, while this person was calmly telling me they couldn’t help.”

Donna’s step-grandchild was badly injured. The only thing she could do was call the local authority to see if it would vouch for her. It took two hours for the call to be returned. The child had lost blood and was in tremendous pain. Only once it was explained by the social worker that Donna was the legal guardian did they give him pain relief and begin to treat the injury. However, the injury required surgery and at a hospital in the next county, an hour’s drive away, Donna once again had to explain who she was. No one from the first hospital was there to verify that Donna was the carer. She had to call children’s services again and wait four hours for verification.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes) (Lab)]

The examples that my hon. Friend cites are incredibly traumatic. These situations are even more complicated for those who do not have legal parental rights and who have an informal kinship arrangement. Has he had any thoughts about what could be done to support those families?

[Tom Collins]

It is true that there is a real diversity in the situations of kinship carers, both in the causes of people finding themselves caring for young people and in the legal structures that they are operating under. We totally recognise that, as we move forward in trying to tackle these issues, we need to be really open-eyed to that full range of different experiences and situations.

Caroline tells her story:

“Eve landed on her arm, screamed out in pain, one look and I knew it was broken. I took her to the emergency department…and she was admitted immediately to the children’s ward. An X-ray was taken and Eve was administered morphine. The consultant booked Eve in for an operation the following day. She had been on morphine all night to help her with the pain. The surgeon came round and explained the procedure. Eve was prepped and then the anaesthetist came with a form to sign. He asked who I was. I told him I was aunt and the legal guardian. He then asked to see my legal order. I told him that no one had asked…He said, ‘I refuse to administer anaesthetic without seeing the legal document.’ I had been up all night with a crying young girl; the last thing I thought about was a legal order. I called my husband, who had to leave work to go home and find the document. It took two hours for the photo ID to be sent…During this time, Eve was hooked up to morphine. We had to wait for the anaesthetist to finish his surgery list to look at the photo on my phone, which was accepted in the blink of an eye.”

Steph points out that this happens consistently:

“I have to show copies at all doctors, dentist, school, etc. Any time we have to make a decision for him I have to show proof. Can you imagine if I lost that piece of paper? It’s not right having to explain that you are the carer in front of the child again and again. Imagine how the child feels.”

Sadly, these situations are typical and, as Steph points out, they can be deeply traumatising for both children and carers.

Christine says:

“I really don’t want to carry my SGO with me; I’m worried I will lose it or it will get into the wrong hands.”

She is not alone. It is also perhaps unfair of us to expect clinical professionals to recognise the various forms of legal document that are not recorded on any Government system but instead live as paper artefacts with mysterious acronyms such as SGO, special guardianship order, or CAO, child arrangement order. How can we be failing children and kinship carers so badly?

Yet there is hope. Christine goes on to say:

“We should be given a card with a barcode and all the details they need to know so that you can keep it in your purse.”

Caroline agrees:

“We need an ID card that will live in my purse, so I don’t have to go through this again.”

Kinship Carers UK, a national charity based in my constituency of Worcester, has the answer. It is ready to help develop an authorised photographic kinship carer ID card and app for all carers, regardless of the type of legal order. This card would allow kinship carers to live fully prepared for any eventuality. It would allow clinical staff to immediately recognise and validate a kinship guardianship situation and to deliver best practice in trauma-informed care, never requiring a family to retell their story or relive past trauma simply to access basic care.

The benefits go further. Preventing the situation described by our kinship families would save money as well as distress. The cost savings to councils on social worker time no longer spent answering queries or to the NHS in rebooked appointments are hard to quantify, especially as the Office for National Statistics has not managed to identify all kinship children, and health trusts do not record instances of rebook treatments for that reason. Even conservative estimates show a kinship carer ID card paying for itself within a year.

Kinship Carers UK has already been in talks with the Department of Health and Social Care and has received a positive response. It is ready to fundraise to secure resources for development, but talks have stalled, as work on the NHS app pushes a full digital implementation of a kinship carer ID back to potentially 10 years away. For kinship families, that is too long, and we as a Government of action, innovation, partnership and collaboration can do better. With a co-ordinated plan in partnership with the Department for Education, DHSC and possibly the Ministry of Justice, Kinship Carers UK can lead a consortium of charities to realise the ID card and information resources for NHS workers. That could be realised within two years, with later digital integration with the NHS in a decade.

My ask of the Minister is simple: will he and the Secretary of State for Health arrange to meet Kinship Carers UK and myself to formulate a plan with the goal of having authorised kinship carer ID cards issued by the end of 2028, for final adoption by the NHS by 2035? It is time for us to act and do what kinship carers are asking us to do and make the system work for them, not against them. Kinship carers work tirelessly to give the children they raise the very best opportunities in life; let us match their commitment. Let us commit to ending the stories we heard this evening and begin a new one: when this Government stepped up and delivered the kinship ID card.

--- Later in debate ---

[Josh MacAlister]

I would be absolutely delighted to recognise Sue Nash and the amazing work that she and so many others are doing across the country through kinship support groups.

The Government have supported the charity Kinship to run 140 peer support groups and training packages across England so that kinship carers have a platform to support one another and navigate the complex systems that sit around the kinship family system. We widened therapeutic help for children through the adoption and special guardianship support fund, for which I recently announced an extension of two years and a 10% increase so that we can continue to meet the needs of adoptive and special guardianship families. We have introduced the first national definition of kinship care, published statutory guidance and appointed a national kinship care ambassador.

We will continue to go further. I know that many kinship carers face financial hardship. That is why the Government will very soon launch a large trial, which will represent the largest single financial investment in kinship carers this country has ever seen, to test the impact of providing a weekly financial allowance equal to the national minimum allowance for foster carers in a number of local authorities across the country. The allowance will not be means-tested and will not impact benefits such as universal credit.

[Melanie Onn]

I thank the Minister for the serious consideration that has been given to this pilot. It is exceptional. We heard from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) what a difference financial support makes. I congratulate the Minister on making sure that this happens for these families, who are not asking for the earth—they’re really not. They just need a little bit of help, and they want that money to go towards the children they are looking after.

[Josh MacAlister]

I thank my hon. Friend for mentioning that. The tireless campaigning of so many kinship families over the years has led the Government to the point of setting in train these changes, which will be announced in full very soon. The fantastic work done by the all-party parliamentary group on kinship care, which my hon. Friend chairs, means that we are now in a position to take these steps in the next few weeks.

Through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, we are legislating to require every local authority to publish a clear and accessible kinship local offer setting out the support available to kinship carers and children. The national kinship care ambassador will provide support and expertise to help local authorities to implement that new national duty, and will shortly release a national report summarising learning generated through engagement with the sector. That is the first step in creating a national kinship standard for a consistent kinship care framework across the country, tackling directly the current postcode lottery in support.

My hon. Friend the Member for Worcester raised the importance of kinship carers having employment leave rights equal to those of parents who are adopting. I reassure my hon. Friend and the House that the Government are considering that. We have launched a review of the parental leave system, and it is clear that kinship carers, and the parental leave to which they are entitled, are within the scope of the review. I thank all the carers who have taken the time to respond to the review. We will also improve data by adding a kinship indicator to the schools census in autumn 2026, and launch the first national study focused on children’s experiences in kinship care.

It is vital to ensure that children have someone advocating for them in education. We will ensure that the virtual school head role has statutory footing for children in kinship care in 2027. Of course, the generational reforms to special educational needs and disabilities announced today will support many children in kinship families. We know that the legal routes through which kinship care arrangements are made can be confusing, and carry different assessments and entitlements to different forms of support, which is why we have asked the Law Commission to review the kinship legal frameworks. Together, those actions show how serious the Government are about ensuring that kinship carers, children and families are recognised, supported and valued.

On the specific issue of identification for kinship carers, I am aware that there is an existing campaign promoting the need for kinship carer ID, led by Kinship Carers UK. I thank that organisation for the work that it has undertaken to shine such an important spotlight on the issue. It is of the utmost importance that our national health service and other public services have robust systems in place to ensure that parental responsibility is recognised quickly and efficiently in all situations in which a child is no longer being cared for by their parents, whether temporarily or permanently. It is concerning to hear of instances in which vulnerable children have been denied access to appropriate and timely medical treatment because of a combination of existing processes failing and a lack of understanding by professionals about kinship care.

The issue of professionals not understanding kinship care is not unique to health services. Just last week, I was in Newcastle speaking to kinship carers who told me about their experience working with their children’s schools, and the continued need to re-explain the status of their special guardianship order. I have also heard of cases in which kinship carers have copies of their SGOs, but professionals still seek further verification of the validity of those documents. The challenge is not simply to have a document that sets out parental responsibility or the role that a carer has in a child’s life, but to ensure that services understand the nature of the orders. I agree that we need a clear way for kinship families to demonstrate where they have parental rights, and that it is a recognised and accepted process wherever it is needed. However, the more pressing concern is ensuring that professionals across all our services recognise and understand kinship care.

I am committed to having conversations with Kinship Carers UK, my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester, the Department of Health and Social Care, the Ministry of Justice, and local authority colleagues to explore the best way to ensure that the situation of kinship children and their carers is recognised and understood, and that they get the support they need in a timely manner, ensuring that public services do not add more stress during what can already be extremely stressful times. Across the House, we agree that kinship carers are remarkable people who step in during extraordinary circumstances and times to give their kin a safe, stable and loving home within their family network. We all agree that it is not acceptable that there are situations in which children are experiencing unnecessary delays in receiving important medical treatment or other public services, due to challenges in providing the legal status of the guardian.

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s contribution to this debate. He is a strong advocate for kinship care, and I thank others for their interventions. I look forward to speaking to my hon. Friend in future about the progress we are making for kinship children and families, and to working with him on the specific issue of ensuring that kinship carers and family members are able to prove parental responsibility as easily as possible, so that they can step up and step into the lives of those children readily and easily.

Question put and agreed to.