One person cannot safely work 168 hours a week

No employer would be allowed to demand it

No union would tolerate it

No health and safety professional would defend it

No court would consider it reasonable

Everyone understands that

Until the worker is called an unpaid carer🪡 Suddenly one person is expected to be available every hour of every day

To be responsible day & night

To sacrifice sleep, income, career opportunities, relationships and often their own health.

Society acts as though this is simply part of family life 🪡

Unpaid carers

They make tea that goes cold. They move through routines that are anything but routine: medication, washing, lifting, soothing, explaining, repeating. Some days are calm. Some days are storms. Every day requires patience that most people will never understand.

🧵 A moment of eye contact that says thank you without words. These moments are everything. They are why they stay.

But the world outside gets quieter.
🧵

Chronic heart failure. On a transplant pathway. Still the unpaid carer. Ask for help to protect your health and stay alive for your child — and you’re ignored or blamed. Who cares for the carer? 🪡 At the start of this year I was in hospital for five weeks caring. From the first week, I repeatedly asked for support for the complex care I normally provide alone. It didn’t arrive until week 3— by then hospital safeguarding failures meant I couldn’t safely leave anyway 🪡

An unpaid carer can’t just leave the house, go for a walk, pick up some shopping, go to the gym.

An unpaid carer has to go through a carers assessment, has to justify the need to go for a walk, pick up shopping, go to the gym. 🧵 And then, the social worker has to agree the hours you need, many often only get “4 hours freedom a week, even then it has to go to panel be agreed by others, others that don’t even know you, as to whether you should be “allowed this free time” 🧵

#carersweek
A thread

#realcarersweek #unpaidcarers

If unpaid carers are being asked by professionals if they’ve thought about ending their life – then something is clearly wrong about the way unpaid carers are being treated 🧵 When you became an unpaid carer did you realise you might struggle to get breaks, that you’d have to continue to work even when you felt unwell.  Imagine knowing that you wouldn’t get a break from your job, that you had to work every day of the year, 24 hours a day regardless 🧵

A story about universal credit. This month F turned 20. I was receiving £880 child element & disability element plus child benefit. All that has gone. I received £151 instead (they deducted £50 as they state they overpaid me one month).🧶 Will I have enough to pay for our home & all associated costs. Anxiously I’ve waited to see what she’ll receive. Gone through all the assessments for limited capability for work. Contacted welfare rights who advised me what she is entitled to. Was this all necessary? 🧶