How many times has social care been kicked down the road?

Chief Executives have had a bad rap lately. Some deserve it, thinking of the chap who heads South East Water currently under fire from irate citizens of Tunbridge Wells unimpressed by their luminous green water and outages. So it is good to know that the boss at Carers UK regularly gets up before sunrise to walk her golden retriever, Millie, as a head-clearing start to her day. It’s just as well, there’s a lot going on.

Carers UK is the national organisation that provides information and advice to the millions of carers and people cared for in the UK, helping them connect with each other, and campaigning with carers for lasting change.  So here she is: Stepping Out talks to Helen Walker, the Chief Exec for the last seven years, charged with that mission.

Helen

“It takes on average two years for people to recognise themselves as carers - that’s two years of not getting the help you need. So this job is not just about standing on podiums and talking to politicians, it’s about telling people about caring ….all the time in all kinds of ways. But in terms of political wins, our biggest in 2025 has to be the recognition of the Carers Allowance Overpayment Scandal. We got £75 million in the last budget to right those wrongs. It was on the front page of The Guardian. I had to go out and buy a newspaper for the first time in years. I was shocked how much it was. £3.20 for a paper! But I was so proud to see carers on the front page.

“It’s very personal to me, this job. If you are going to be a chief executive the cause has to matter. If you don’t believe in what you are talking about it’s painfully obvious.

My mum cared for my father during the last 6 months of his life. I went to Scotland from London pretty much every weekend for that time. A seven hour journey. It was really to give my Mum respite but I would not have called that caring. Once I got this gig, everyone was like: ‘Yeah, you were distance caring, Helen, and without that your Mum wouldn’t have been able to cope’.

What I’m pushing for in 2026 is the five days unpaid leave for carers in employment that we achieved in the Carers Leave Act 2023, to be upgraded to paid carers leave. A lot of carers have to work to bring money into the household. That’s why social care is so important. People can’t juggle working and caring without it. That’s also why 600 people A DAY give up working to care for someone.

The Casey Commission into adult social care will publish its interim report next year with the final one due in 2028, coincidentally just before the next election. How many times has social care been kicked down the road? The system as it stands is deeply unfair and fundamentally flawed, especially as the level of care that unpaid carers provide has been calculated as the equivalent of £184 billion - the cost of a second NHS. If carers stopped caring tomorrow the whole health and social care system would collapse.

So what you are providing at Stepping Out with Carers is the respite that carers need. A walk in the fresh air. Without that I’d be lost. My dog has given me a whole new world. Just me and her out for a walk provides my private headspace. It’s priceless. It’s the same for carers. You need five minutes of your own time to do something for you, otherwise you’ll topple over. As I say on multiple occasions, if that happens the state will wind up looking after two people instead of one.

I’ve spent my entire life in the charity sector. I wanted to make a difference to the world and worked my way up to being Director of Fundraising for SSAFA, a military charity which offered support to veterans. They kept parachuting in generals to be the Chief Executive and I thought I could do a better job than them so I set myself a target of becoming a CEO by the time I was 40. I made it when I was 39.

So 2026. We’ll see what Louise Casey’s commission reports.  There have been previous reviews left, right and centre. I think it’s 22 of them. So many. Yet we know what the solution is. More money, putting social care on a par with the NHS. We have an ageing population with complex heath conditions. If we don’t solve social care now…

….but if we get cross-party cooperation…I think there’s hope. That’s all I can say.’‍

https://www.carersuk.org/