Agenda item

To set out the Council’s responsibilities to carers, demographic information on carers in Brent, and information on the engagement work that has taken place to inform and develop the Carers’ strategy for unpaid carers.

Claudia Brown (Director Adult Social Care, Brent Council) introduced the strategy which had been co-produced with carers over the last 2 years. The strategy was now at a stage where it could be launched and therefore was being presented to the Health and Wellbeing Board for comments and endorsement. She introduced Star Pswarayi (Head of Access – Information, Safeguarding and Wellbeing Services, Brent Council), Ann-Marie Morris (CEO, Brent Carers Centre) and Hasmita Patel and invited them to introduce the strategy. Some of the key points were highlighted as follows:

• Brent had never had a Carers Strategy before, so officers were pleased to be bringing this piece of work, which had been co-produced with informal carers.
• Star Pswarayi had project-led the preparation of the carers’ strategy alongside carers in Brent. She highlighted that there were currently 22,000 known carers in Brent, and the Census 2021 and Carers UK research had found that carers were contributing approximately £160 billion into the nation’s Health and Social Care budget.
• Anne-Marie Morris added described the strategy as an integrated strategy with health and social care working together to bring it together, including partners such as the local authority, CNWL, and CLCH, as well as voluntary and community sector organisations.
• A lot of planning had taken place to ensure the right people were around the table and officers had been thorough in the way they had implemented engagement with carers and key stakeholders, taking time to listen and have challenging discussions with carers about their experiences. It was believed that, through that collaborative consultation, carers had felt listened to, appreciated and valued and officers were keen to progress the strategy to show carers the ways services had incorporated what they had asked for.
• One of the key elements of the strategy was the commitment to ‘no wrong doors’, particularly for young carers, which ensured carers were not being passed around to different services without knowing who they were and what support they could offer.
• Hasmita Patel highlighted one of the main concerns from carers had been the amount of information in different formats. Carers had asked for all information to be available in one place that was easy to access, and so a carers booklet had been created which would be shared with all partners to use so that every partner was giving the same information to carers. That booklet would be reviewed on a regular basis to include any changes.
• Another objective of the strategy was partnership working. The carers forum was well established with health partners and different types of carers involved, and officers were looking to widen that to have other organisations involved, including social care. As carers were seen as partners in the strategy, officers were getting them involved in reviewing contracts that affected them so that services were relevant to them.
• A third objective was supporting the wellbeing of carers, as it was recognised that caring could be a stressful role. A document was being pulled together with information about where carers could access support and respite and officers were also talking to carers about mental health first aid training. Brent Health Matters (BHM) were reaching out to carers in the community to inform them they were entitled to free health checks.
• The fourth objective of the strategy focused on carers awareness, tackling the stigma of people identifying themselves as carers. The aim was to develop awareness not just with organisations in health and social care but also with communities where people may not understand they are a carer. To do that, the training for health and social care staff was being enhanced so that staff were aware of the different avenues carers could get support through and understand how to recognise if someone was an informal carer.
• The fifth objective focused on reaching into communities, including faith groups. The final objective was supporting young carers. Officers were looking to hire a Carer Community Officer who would go to schools and explain what a young carer was and where they could get support.
• The documents provided to Board included an example of the granular implementation plans that would be used for each commitment. Each commitment would be accompanied by these implementation plans with delivery dates.
• An Integrated Working Group would be established to monitor the implementation and progress of the strategy, and work was being done to embed the strategy with other strategies such as the Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy.

In considering the report, the following points were raised:

·         Members were advised that the Carers Strategy had been presented to the Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee, who would be provided with an update on the implementation of the strategy in 6 months’ time, following evaluation.

·         Robyn Doran (Director of Transformation, CNWL, and Brent ICP Director) recommended that, as partner organisations, Board members should ensure policy and framework was in place within their organisations to support staff who were carers.

·         Nigel Chapman (Corporate Director Children and Young People, Brent Council) was pleased to see young carers expressly referenced in the strategy. He would ensure colleges were considered alongside schools in this work, as a lot of Brent’s young people most in need were between 16-18 years old and providing unpaid care. In terms of reviewing the strategy, he received an annual report on young carers via the Early Help and Protection Group which fed into the Brent Children’s Trust (BCT).

·         The implementation of the strategy would include a communications plan, which would look to split the strategy into bitesize information pieces that were relevant to different organisations.

As no further issues were raised, the Chair drew the discussion to a close, asking for the evaluation and review of the carers strategy to be presented to the Board on an annual basis, alongside the communications and training plan. The Board RESOLVED to endorse the strategy as presented.