Section 4. Outcomes of breaks from caring

This chapter asks whether carers who are receiving breaks-related formal support report different kinds of outcomes, compared with carers receiving other types of support or those who did not receive support.

This chapter looks at all carers who responded to the HACE survey whose support status we could categorise.

The findings suggest that receiving breaks-related formal support is strongly associated with positive outcomes in terms of feeling supported to continue caring. This association was less strong between receiving breaks-related support and carers feeling that they had a good balance between caring and other things in their lives, and in terms of carers not feeling that caring has had a negative impact on their health and wellbeing. This section includes discussion of why this might be.

Feeling supported to continue caring

Feeling supported to continue caring was most likely to be reported by carers who received formal support, and least likely to be reported by carers who had received no support despite feeling they needed some (Figure 7).

Feeling supported to continue caring was reported by:

• 50% of carers who received breaks-related formal support

Which was similar to:

• 49% of carers who received non-breaks-related formal support

But higher than:

• 33% of carers who received only informal support for caring
• 31% of carers who had not received any support but felt they did not need any
• 7% of carers who had received no support despite feeling that they needed some

Figure 7: Half of all carers receiving breaks-related formal support agreed they felt supported to continue caring (50%), compared to less than one tenth of carers who had not received any support despite feeling they needed some (7%). 

Bar chart showing variations in agreement and disagreement with the statement “I feel supported to continue caring” amongst all carers.

Balance between caring and other things in their lives

Among carers who had received any type of support, a feeling of balance between caring and other things in their lives was least likely to be reported by carers who received breaks-related formal support (45%). This is in comparison to:

• 56% of carers who received non-breaks-related formal support,
• 63% of carers who received only informal support for caring.

Carers who received no support despite feeling they needed some were least likely to report having a good balance between caring and other things in their life (27%). Those who did not receive any support but did not need any were most likely to report this balance (77%) (Figure 8).

Figure 8: Carers receiving breaks-related formal support were more likely to agree that they had “a good balance between caring and other things” in their lives (45%), than those who had not received any support despite feeling they needed some (27%)

Bar chart showing variations in agreement and disagreement with the statement “I have a good balance between caring and other things in my life” amongst all carers.

Negative impact on health and wellbeing

Among the carers receiving support, carers receiving breaks-related formal support were most likely to agree with the statement “caring has had a negative impact on my health and wellbeing” (61%). This is in comparison to 47% of carers receiving non-breaks-related formal support and 36% receiving only informal support.

21% of carers who did not receive support but did not need any agreed that caring had a negative impact on their health and wellbeing, compared to 64% of carers who did not receive any support but felt they needed some.

Reflections on caring statements according to support type

These findings suggest that fewer carers who receiving breaks-related support are reporting positive outcomes, in terms of feeling their lives are balanced and negative impacts of caring, compared to other carers. A number of reasons may account for this variation.

First, this variation may be due in part to the impact of caring for differing hours per week. Carers providing 50+ hours of care per week are more likely to be receiving breaks-related formal support. (See Section 3, figure 4 for further detail.)

Second, evidence from other sources also suggests that the impact of breaks-related formal support on a carer’s wellbeing is mixed and often contingent on other factors, such as whether or not any other types of support are being provided to the carer in conjunction with breaks-related formal support.

Third, carers who are more likely to report worse outcomes may be more likely to seek out, be offered or receive breaks-related formal support.

The evidence available in this analysis is not sufficient to conclude which, if any, of the above factors may be influencing the results.

A number of carers who told us about the support they had received did not respond when asked if they felt supported to continue caring, if caring had had a negative impact on their health and wellbeing, or if they had a good balance between caring and other things in their life. The total number of respondents are reported on the supplementary tables.