Carers Gloucestershire is an independent, Carer led charitable organisation that seeks to empower Carers across the county to promote their rights and enable them to make positive choices to improve the quality of their lives.

In short, we are working to enhance the lives of Carers.

We achieve this by working in partnership with other organisations to:

• Identify Carers.
• Provide a range of services in response to their needs.
• Give Carers a ‘collective’ voice.
• Maintain Carers Gloucestershire as a sustainable organisation.

A Carer is a person who provides unpaid help and support on a regular basis to a partner, child, relative, friend or neighbour, who is frail or has a physical or mental illness, disability or substance misuse issues. The Carer is not employed to provide this help but does so to improve the quality of that person’s life.

Nationally:

• From the last Census in 2001 there are about 6 million Carers in the UK, saving the treasury about £87 billion per annum.
• Over one in five, about 1.2 million, Carers spend over 50 hours per week on their caring responsibilities.
• Only 25% of Carers have had a Carers Assessment and over 50% were unaware they have an entitlement to an assessment of their own needs.
• More than 80% of Carers say that their caring role has had a detrimental effect on their own health.
• The number of Carers is likely to rise to over 13 million within the next decade.

Locally in Gloucestershire:

• Again, from the last Census in 2001 there are about 56,000 Carers, saving the County about £508 million per annum.