Dawn Bowden MS, Minister for Children and Social Care
This Government recognises and values the huge contribution unpaid carers make to our society and the care they provide to their family and friends. We published the Strategy for Unpaid Carers in 2021. This document sets out our commitments and priorities for action and our intention was to revise the strategy in 2025.
The Ministerial Advisory Group for Unpaid Carers oversees the work completed under the strategy. This group comprises representatives of national carer organisations, health boards, local authorities, regulators, the Children and Older People’s Commissioner’s office, researchers and individual unpaid carers.
We have been working hard to deliver against our existing strategy, including:
- Our £9million short breaks scheme will deliver 30,000 breaks for unpaid carers by 31 March 2025.
- The £4.5million Carers Support Fund will provide 15,000 small grants for emergency financial support by 31 March 2025.
- Carer Aware and other funded programmes to support carers, train professionals and drive cultural change to benefit unpaid carers.
- Funding of £1million to health boards to support unpaid carers when the person they care for is admitted to or discharged from hospital.
The Ministerial Advisory Group has been reviewing our priorities for action in 2025/26 and has identified that these can be accommodated within the four overarching priorities of the existing strategy. Our engagement with carers, and reports produced by Carers Wales reflect carers experiences and views that also fit within the existing national strategy.
In October, the First Minister wrote to members of the Cabinet urging us to focus our resources on action that directly drives improvement for the people of Wales. Our priorities for targeted support of carers in 2025/26 aligns with the current strategy. On this basis, I have decided it is more beneficial to target resource on progressing a robust annual delivery plan for 2025/26, rather than using our resources on a full review. This will provide a refresh of our strategic approach. We will undertake a full review of the national strategy later in 2025, to be in place for April 2026.