Lack of older care support is creating a £6bn blackhole

Due to approximately 400,000 adults leaving their jobs to become a full-time carer the UK economy is losing around £6bn a year, according to The Carents Room.

Becoming a full-time carer in the UK sometimes means giving up your full-time job. The decision comes with a number of downfalls, although experts from The Carers Room claim that additional support would mean this wouldn’t be the case.

Currently research by the company, which was founded by Dr Jackie Gray -a retired GP, shows an estimated 400,000 adults – roughly the population of Bristol – chose to leave the UK’s workforce each year in order to take one caring responsibilities.

‘If Carents have the support to continue working, that leads to more people paying tax, less dependence on benefits, and a more productive workforce,’ Dr Gray said.

‘Carents’ are individuals who have taken on the role of caring for their elderly parents – there are currently around four million in the UK.

Her concerns echo findings highlighted in The Darzi Report, which recently warned that the NHS ‘was not contributing to national prosperity as it could’, with the publication outlining the need to get more of the UK’s 2.8million economically inactive adults back into work.

Dr Gray added: ‘Because of a worrying lack of support for older people, many adult carers feel the only realistic option they have to ensure that their loved one is cared for is to dramatically scale back their working hours or leave their career completely.

‘In many cases, they want to do neither. These are working-aged adults in well-paid jobs, who are often years or even decades away from retirement/

‘However, the lack of central support for those they love means their options are severely limited, causing a significant hit to the UK’s economy and prosperity.

‘For carers, it means both their wage and pension pots take a devastating hit, while the state not only loses out on taxation but there becomes a greater reliance on benefits.’

For example, Shelagh Murray, a 63-year-old from Yorkshire, made the choice to take early retirement from her successful career designing kitchens to care for her parents after they experienced falls.

‘The reality is becoming a carent can prevent you from working and that was just devastating for me, as I knew I still had so much to give,’ said Shelagh, who has since returned to work after launching her own business.

And according to Dr Gray, that’s a theme repeated constantly via The Carents Room, a website created to provide support and guidance for the UK’s carents.

‘The carents using our service are simply not ready to stop working,’ she added.

‘But the lack of support for them, and those they love, ultimately means that nobody wins.’