If you’re a Carer who helps and supports someone who can’t manage on their own, we want to ensure YOU get all the support YOU need.
We are trying to identify as many Carers as we can, particularly those people who may be looking after a member of their family or helping a friend or neighbour with day to day tasks, don’t really regard themselves as a Carer and are undertaking this vital activity without help or support.
Although extremely valuable and important, Caring for someone can mean being in demand round the clock and lead to a feeling of isolation, which is why we want Carers to receive all the support and information we can give, on topics such as benefit entitlement, access to respite care or maybe simply to provide a kindly ear when things get too much.
If you are caring for someone, we really would like you to let us know, so that we can ensure our records are up-to-date and, if you are agreeable, pass your details to the Carers Service, a countywide organisation providing relevant information and advice, local support services, newsletter and telephone linkline for carers.
With your permission, we will also refer you to have your needs assessed by Adult Care Services. This is called a Carers’ Needs Assessment. There is no charge for this, and it’s your chance to discuss your role as a Carer and what help you may need to:
- Support you as a Carer
- Maintain your own health
- Balance caring with other aspects of your life, like work and family, looking at both your current and future needs.
It’s NOT about judging the way you are caring for someone, nor should social services assume that you wish to become, or carry on being, a carer. As a result of completing the Assessment, the local authority may provide services to help you in your caring role or to maintain your own health and well-being. It can also look at the needs of the person you care for. This could be done separately, or together, depending on the situation.
If you are a Carer, please do spend a couple of minutes to complete the attached Carer's Pack Carer's Pack and then return it to the Practice.
Route2wellbeing is an online directory to enable members of the public and health and social care professionals to find the many sources of support within Sandwell and Birmingham.
It makes information about local community-based services easy to find through categories such as addiction support, furniture, carers' support, transport, befriending and foodbank.
The website is the fruits of partnership work between Sandwell Council Voluntary Organisations (SCVO), Birmingham Voluntary Service Council (BVSC) and the Sandwell and West Birmingham Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). It was created as part of a wider pilot programme of activity in late 2012 and early 2013 to foster better understanding between the voluntary and communitysector and local GPs and health professionals.
Route2wellbeing allows users to find the services nearest them by keying in their postcode. Information is stored on a service by service basis, meaning that organisations can have multiple listings, with each service and different location or point of access displayed for the user.
The site is designed to help GPs point their patients to voluntary and community organisations and to help patients to find non-medical support and guidance in addition to that which the health service can offer them.
- Go to the Route2wellbeing directory.