LOCAL MPs are backing a charity’s plea for the Government to give more recognition to unpaid carers.

Carers’ Resource, based in Shipley, gives emotional and practical support to 16,000 unpaid carers across the Bradford district including Ilkley, Harrogate and Skipton areas. It is frustrated that the Government recently abandoned plans for an updated national Carers Strategy, which was first promised in 2014.

The charity’s chief executive Chris Whiley said: “A national strategy sets the tone for how the nation should treat unpaid carers, who provide help and support to anyone who could not otherwise manage because of frailty, illness or disability.

“Having a framework that recognises the enormous contribution carers make would mean that employers, local authorities and the NHS would be given clear directions about taking carers into consideration when planning how to use their resources.

“Three in five of us will become carers at some point in our lives and it is estimated that the economic value of the contribution made by unpaid carers in the UK is £132bn a year, which is almost the same amount as the NHS budget. A national strategy wouldn’t immediately help the average carer, but it would go some way to changing the attitudes of decision-making bodies.

“The Government said late last year that the Carers Strategy will instead be encompassed into the Social Care Green Paper this summer but a carers’ action plan would be published in January, but this did not materialise. Our concern is that recognition of carers and their contribution will get lost in a Green Paper with such a wide remit.”

Shipley MP Philip Davies, whose constituency includes Menston and Burley-in-Wharfedale, visited Carers’ Resource’s Shipley office in December to meet carers, including Barbara Hargreaves, of Ilkley. He has also previously written to ministers about the Carers Strategy on behalf of Carers’ Resource.

Mr Davies said: “I will also take this up for you [Carers’ Resource] with the Minister and send you his response as soon as I receive it.”

Ilkley's MP John Grogan said: “Carers come from all different backgrounds and range in age from teenagers looking after parents to people in their 90s looking after partners. It is important that as a society we recognise their contribution and develop a national strategy to value and assist them.”

Unpaid carers can call Carers’ Resource on 01274 449660 or email bradford@carersresource.org for emotional and practical support.

Carers’ Resource is urging people to sign a petition that was set up by carer Katharine Styles, of Canterbury, Kent, to ask the Government to reconsider creating a standalone Carers Strategy. Mrs Styles said: “An action plan is not a Carers Strategy. Signing this petition will show Government that carers matter.”

Sign the petition at: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/209717.