Carers play an essential role in the overall care provided for service users.
Carers work with our services to look after patients in their homes, helping to avoid hospital admissions.
You are a carer if:
- You look after a family member, partner, neighbour or friend who needs help because of their illness, frailty, mental health, substance misuse problems or disability
- Someone relies on you to help them live at home
- The care you give is unpaid
- You consider yourself to be a carer
- You regularly spend time and energy looking after a disabled or frail adult or child.
Being a carer is very rewarding but difficult too. Caring responsibilities can be stressful and negatively impact a carers’ own health and wellbeing.
CNWL have developed an Information Pack for Carers, Friends and Relatives to help provide you with the information you need to navigate CNWL services and access support. We recognise that each carers needs will be slightly different, but we have tried to cover all the important points that will help you in your role as a carer
We really appreciate the input of carers and have the following support services in place to help them
- Carers' assessments
- Carers’ council
- Carers rights
- Respite for carers: taking a break
- Support for carers
- Involvement in the public, patient and carer strategy
Remember that it is important that you let your general practitioner (GP) know that you have caring responsibilities.
CNWL carers, staff and service users have co-produced a leaflet about how we share information with patients and carers. You can download it here.
All carers should receive a copy of the leaflet whether it’s part of a welcome pack or given out separately to known carers.
