The North East has a greater proportion of unpaid carers than anywhere else in England - and a leading charity boss has warned that's "no coincidence".
The figures come from recently released census data from March 2021. This shows that 10.1% of people across the region provide unpaid care - and that there are also the highest percentage (3.4%) who care for others for more than 50 hours a week.
Dr Michelle Cooper MBE runs the County Durham Community Foundation. The charity is running its Poverty Hurts campaign as it looks to raise a million pounds to help people in the county.
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Dr Cooper said unemployment, deprivation and ill-health "go hand-in-hand". She said: "It is no coincidence that the North East has England’s highest unemployment rate, the greatest levels of deprivation and the highest percentage of unpaid carers.
"Economic inactivity, poverty and ill health go hand-in-hand, not only for those who are unwell, but for their loved ones who are needing to step in to provide a level of care that the NHS and social care services just can’t provide. Unpaid carers are the silent support column of the country’s social care and healthcare system. But they are carers not because it’s a job, or a calling, but because it’s what their life demands of them."
Dr Cooper said that it was supporting carers as young as five, and added: "Most unpaid carers are adults providing care for more than 50 hours a week, which is significantly longer than the working week of most people. We need to recognise that these economically inactive people are certainly not lazy or unwilling to work.
"They are often making an enormous sacrifice, putting their own needs and dreams on hold, and then suffering financial hardship and the indignity of back-to-work schemes that completely ignore their individual situations."
The census data shows that in some areas around one in five 55 to 59-year-olds spend some of their time providing unpaid care. In Sunderland - the most affected part of our region - the figures show that 19.1% of people in that age range are unpaid carers of some kind. Almost a quarter of women in the city - 22.6% - are unpaid carers.
The Carers Trust said the data “highlights the significant poverty penalty experienced by the nation’s unpaid carers, with far more people caring for friends and family in areas of higher deprivation”.
In England, in 2021, 8.1% of people in the least deprived areas provided unpaid care, compared with 10.1% in the most deprived areas, this is a difference of 2.0 percentage points. In 2011, the difference between the percentage of unpaid carers in the most and least deprived areas was just 0.4%.
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