Section 2. Feeling supported to continue caring

This section provides information about how many carers felt supported to continue caring, and how this varies by their stated need for, and receipt of support.  

How many unpaid carers feel supported to continue caring?

Overall, 25% of unpaid carers did not feel supported to continue caring – a slightly different measure to the indication of need in Section 1.

Reports of not feeling supported to continue caring were higher for carers providing the largest number of caring hours per week. 30% of those providing 35 or more hours of care per week did not feel supported to continue caring, compared to 21% of those providing 19 hours or less of care per week.

How does this vary by their need for, and receipt of support?

This also varies by unpaid carers’ support status – i.e. whether they indicated that they received support, needed but did not receive support, or did not need support.

61% of carers who did not receive any support but felt that they needed some told us they did not feel supported to continue caring, compared to 20% of carers who had received support.

Carers who indicated that they received formal support reported the lowest rates of not feeling supported to continue caring (18%) followed by carers who had received only informal support for caring (23%), and the general population of carers (25%) (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Carers who reported receiving formal support were least likely to report that they did not feel “supported to continue caring” (18%).

Bar chart showing responses to the statement “I feel supported to continue caring” among those carers who received support, and among all carers.

While this could suggest that receiving formal support is linked to more positive outcomes for unpaid carers, it should also be noted that some of this variation may be explained by differences in characteristics of carers receiving formal support compared with those carers receiving informal support only. For more on these differences see Section 3.

It should also be noted that the presence of formal support by itself does not indicate a carer’s need for support has been met. The formal support may not be the right type or of sufficient duration to meet their needs. Conversely, many carers may have their needs met by informal support only.