ACE and Carers UK at Party Conference

Carers UK had a strong presence at the three major party conferences – the Liberal Democrats in Brighton, Labour in Bournemouth and the Conservatives in Blackpool.

At the Liberal Democrats and Labour we held events in conjunction with the Caring Choices coalition on the future funding of long term care. Caring Choices has been leading discussion on this crucial subject throughout the year and party conferences were a perfect opportunity to engage high level stakeholders. With excellent speakers including Vince Cable MP at Lib Dems, Barbara Keeley MP at Labour, plus Niall Dickson from the King’s Fund, Paul Cann from Help the Aged, Michelle Mitchell from Age Concern, Professor Julien Forder from the London School of Economics and Imelda Redmond from Carers UK, our fringe events had around 140 attendees in total with a very good level of debate.

Key themes coming out of the debate were about the need for people to have a clear understanding of what care they can expect from the state and what they will need to provide themselves. There was also agreement that carers need to be at the heart of a new social care system since most care is provided by families rather than by formal care services.

We also held a packed evening reception with speeches from Health Secretary Alan Johnson MP and Carers Minister Ivan Lewis MP. Both talked about the important work of Carers UK and Caring Choices and stressed that they were committed to a new settlement for social care and a rebalancing of the lack of focus on social care compared to health in public debate.

At Labour we also had an exhibition stand at which we demonstrated our ‘Care to take a look’ tool. Many MPs and Councillors stopped by to look at the statistics on carers in their area. A total of 13 Ministers visited our stand so it was a busy few days. We also promoted our Real Change not Short Change campaign materials, including showing the Prime Minister the postcards that we were going to be sending to him! Gordon Brown also mentioned carers in his speech, further cementing his commitment to reforming support for carers.

At Conservative conference we focused on the issue of how care services can support carers to work, and the need for employers to have a voice in the debate about the way social care is provided. Our speakers were Mark Harper MP, Shadow Disability Minister, Stephen Burke from Counsel and Care and Kieran O’Keeffe from the British Chambers of Commerce. With expert contributors from business, academia and the social care field, the meeting examined some practical ways to reform social care to make it more responsive to carers’ and users’ needs.