Carers’ Champions What have we learnt? Doctor Zunia Hurst, Carers’ Lead Royal College of General Practitioners

Member Practice Commissioning Agreement – In-house carers champion – Baseline assessment to identify number of carers on their register as at 01/05/2013 – Achieve overall allocated target figure of carers registered at your practice on 31/03/2014 (practice’s proportion, based on weighted list size of the HVCCG target of 4,000 by year end) – Offer 90% of the carers on their register as at 31/03/2014, an annual carer’s health check – 67/70 practices achieved this

Hours Carers Champions Work

How Carers Champions spend time Most of my role Very often Often Hardly ever NeverNA Admin functions to help the practice support carers (e.g. maintaining register, writing letters etc) Face to face work with individual carers Signposting to Carers in Hertfordshire Signposting to other voluntary organisations Signposting to Social care

How Carers Champions spend time (2) Most of my role Very often Often Hardly ever NeverNA Training and awareness raising within the practice Collecting data about the outcomes resulting from supporting carers Maintaining noticeboards, supplies of leaflets etc Casework with individual carers, follow up, ensuring support now in place

Health-checks Target No Target % Actual No Actual % of carers on list Actual no as % of carers in W Herts No. of carers on register at 31 st March ,000 -5, % No. of carers offered a health check 3,60090%5,13993%9.3% No. of carers who had a health check %1.7%

Health-checks in 1 Practice Of 42 carers who had a health-check:  7 had depression  4 had raised BP  2 needed advice on diet/weight loss  1 had raised lipids  1 was referred to social care  8 were signposted/referred to Carers in Hertfordshire  Other minor health ailments were dealt with - blocked ears, lower back pain, medication review

Referrals to Carers in Hertfordshire Month Total Note 1: significant improvement over ’s total of 154 (increase of 243 = 157%). Note 2: Some practices high referrers, some referring none Note 3: Over the year this averages out to less than half a referral per practice per month.

Signposting to Carers in Hertfordshire 435 new carers in West Herts approached Carers in Herts having found out about them through primary care This compares to 189 in the previous year An increase of 130% This averages out to just over half a carer per month per practice finding their way to CinH having heard about the offer from primary care At the same time, general practice is now the biggest source of referral to Carers in Hertfordshire

Impact According to Champions Impact of my roleSignificantSomeNot really Do you think your role has made a difference to carers using the practice? Examples include: Signposting (Carers in Herts, Herts Help etc) More referrals Carers Support Worker Improved awareness of Carers in Herts Better use of the carers’ register Flexible appointments Helping carers access counselling Carers clinics, special events at surgery etc Individual case work

Support for Carers Champions Support to do the roleYesNoNA Have you had training in your role from Carers in Hertfordshire? 1240 Have you had training in your role from others 3130 VeryUsefulNA How useful was training from CinH? 75- How useful was training from others? 12- Further supportYesNoNot sure Would you like to meet with other Carer Champions and CinH to share good practice and learn more about carers and the support available? 1222

Conclusions Need to hear from more Champions, GPs, carers and CinH to form full picture Significant improvement in recognition of carers in primary care A long way to go to reach more carers, earlier on in caring journey to promote wellbeing and prevent ‘carer breakdown’, hospital admissions etc