Carers

(asked on 11th July 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the NHS Long Term Plan implementation framework, how many people have carer passports; and what targets have been set to increase the adoption of those passports.


Answered by
Caroline Dinenage Portrait
Caroline Dinenage
This question was answered on 16th July 2019

Section 2.33 of NHS England’s Long Term Plan states:

“We will continue to identify and support carers, particularly those from vulnerable communities. Carers are twice as likely to suffer from poor health compared to the general population, primarily due to a lack of information and support, finance concerns, stress and social isolation. Quality marks for carer-friendly GP practices, developed with the Care Quality Commission (CQC), will help carers identify GP services that can accommodate their needs. We will encourage the national adoption of carer's passports, which identify someone as a carer and enable staff to involve them in a patient’s care, and set out guidelines for their use based on trials in Manchester and Bristol. These will be complemented by developments to electronic health records that allow people to share their caring status with healthcare professionals wherever they present.”

There is currently no data on the number of Carer Passports nationally and the use of theses passports is variable across the country and across different health, care and community settings.

Work commissioned by the Department and carried out by Carers UK and Carers Trust, led to the development of a carer passport resource. The Carer Passport resource is available at the following link:

https://carerspassports.uk/

This provides information on existing passport frameworks and support for the development of carer passports across a range of settings. As part of NHS England’s commitments, we will be supporting the use of these passports and promoting this through the implementation of our Quality Markers in Primary Care (launched in June), ongoing development work with sustainability and transformation partnership and integrated care system localities and as an extension of work already in progress following the response to John’s Campaign within secondary care settings. More information about John’s Campaign is available at the following link:

https://johnscampaign.org.uk/#/

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