'Caring for mum is a constant worry', says Eastbourne teenager
Oliver became a carer when he was eight years old after his mum Wendy collapsed unexpectedly at home, leading to open heart surgery and a mechanical heart being fitted.Four years later a stroke led to Wendy losing some mobility in her right hand side.Oliver said he had always been happy to look after his mum, but he did not realise he was a young carer for several years until someone told him that support and recognition was available."It makes a huge difference," he said."Having someone to talk to, who understands what you're going through and has an idea of what you need is really helpful."He said help could be counselling, other carers to talk to or "activities or trips which take you outside of your normal life"."It can feel constant, like it's your whole life caring sometimes," he added. "In the mornings you care, when you get home from school, you care. Having those breaks is key to living rather than just caring."Oliver said that caring didn't mean just doing the dishes, washing clothes and hoovering, as there was a "huge mental side effect as well, where you're constantly worrying about the person you care for"."It's a feeling that drags you down sometimes, that you need to be there for that person all the time," he said. "Having support really does lift that weight off you."
'Huge responsibility'
His mum Wendy said Oliver was a very caring person who never complained, but she was grateful he could be supported to have some days out without her where he could "just be a kid".She added: "It's such a huge responsibility, I couldn't imagine at his age doing what he does. I'm so proud of him."
Kirsty McHugh, CEO of Carers Trust, said it was "incredibly disappointing" that the UK Government still hadn't given unpaid carers a right to respite and that it "seemed to have forgotten unpaid carers" as it works to strengthen employment rights.She said: "For decades, successive governments have depended on unpaid carers to provide social care on the cheap, which has delayed the need to come up with long-term funding and support."In a statement, the Department of Health and Social Care said: "We value the immense contribution of all unpaid carers. To help social care authorities support carers we are providing a funding boost of up to £3.7 billion this year – which includes help for unpaid carers."We have also increased the Carer's Allowance earnings threshold by around an extra £2,000 a year – the biggest rise since it was introduced in 1976 - and are reviewing carer's leave to see whether further help is needed."As part of wider reforms, Baroness Louise Casey has begun her work on the Independent Commission into Social Care, which will include exploring the needs of unpaid carers."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
13 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Wes Streeting ‘thought he had struck deal to halt strike by doctors'
Wes Streeting thought he had struck a deal with resident doctors to stop a five-day strike in England, only for the British Medical Association to then reject it, sources have claimed. The health secretary believed he had secured a verbal agreement with the co-chairs of the BMA's resident doctors committee for a deal that involved progress on tackling five non-pay issues. Whitehall sources say Ross Nieuwoudt and Melissa Ryan decided the agreement made during face-to-face talks last Tuesday was enough for the suspension of the strike, which started on Friday. The deal would have involved resident doctors – formerly junior doctors – getting access to hot meals when working overnight, having some exam fees paid, receiving funding for equipment such as stethoscopes and getting mess rooms and changes to the way their postgraduate training was organised. But when Nieuwoudt and Ryan relayed the potential deal to the full committee, they were told they could not approve it because it did not address the BMA's demand that resident doctors receive a 29% pay rise over the next few years. 'They were told by the committee that they could only talk about pay and none of this soft stuff matters. Wes was furious. They had come incredibly close to a deal,' a source said. Resident doctors in England receive basic pay of between £38,831 and £73,992, with extra payments worth up to 15% of their salaries for working at weekends. The failure to reach a deal underlines the gulf between the BMA and Streeting. He has refused to reopen negotiations over the 5.4% salary increase he has given resident doctors this year. But the union is adamant it will call off industrial action only if he agrees to talk money. The BMA denied that it was responsible for the failure to strike a deal and blamed Streeting. A spokesperson said: 'We cannot be clearer: it was the government that ended the talks. 'Resident doctors do not want to strike. However, we have been compelled to take action because Mr Streeting's ultimatum, which demanded we call off strikes in exchange for nothing more than further talks was simply not acceptable. 'We want to continue our negotiations with Mr Streeting and strongly urge him to get back around the table with a serious proposal, rather than a handful of platitudes.' NHS bosses warn the strikes could 'snowball' and even continue into next year. They fear that nurses, consultant doctors and other NHS staff might stage strikes too. Sir Jim Mackey, the chief executive of NHS England, told the Sunday Times: 'We know that continued disruption over the coming months could see a snowball effect for patients and for staff. 'We've seen that before and it has take a huge effort over the last year to build momentum back up on reducing waiting lists and times.' His deputy, David Probert, who is also chief executive of University College London hospitals trust, told the same paper: 'This could be a marathon. We could be doing this until Christmas or maybe beyond.' The BMA's 55,000 resident doctor members have a legal mandate to take strike action for six months, until 6 January. Kemi Badenoch has pledged to outlaw strikes by doctors, bringing them into line with the police and army, if she becomes prime minister. 'Doctors hold lives in their hands. No one should lose critical healthcare because of strikes but that's what's happening now', the opposition leader posted on X on Sunday. 'That's why a Conservative government led by me would ban doctors' strikes, just like we do the army and police.'
BBC News
13 minutes ago
- BBC News
Bridgwater £17.8m diagnostic centre to improve access to 'vital scans'
A hospital trust has moved a step forward in its plans to construct a £17.8m diagnostic centre to improve access to vital NHS Foundation Trust has been given approval by NHS England to construct the facility next to Bridgwater Community Hospital. It said it has now applied for planning permission, which if approved could see the facility open next centre will run a range of services including two CT scanners, two MRI scanners, four outpatient rooms and two echocardiography and ultrasound director David Craig said the centre is "expected to provide almost 25,000 additional scans every year". This will enable the centre to provide the Bridgwater population with routine and specialist cardiac and cancer scanning, alongside clinics. It follows the opening of a community diagnostic centre in Taunton in 2020, as well as the development of a diagnostic centre next to Yeovil Hospital, which is expected to open later this year."This development is fantastic news for people in Bridgwater and will improve access to vital healthcare scans, as well as help us to reduce our waiting times," Mr Craig said."The new centre supports one of the three shifts of the NHS 10 Year Plan, which involves transferring care from hospitals into local communities."Running across seven days a week, it will improve access for people in Bridgwater and the surrounding areas to specialist care, with the centre expected to provide almost 25,000 additional scans every year."
Telegraph
43 minutes ago
- Telegraph
We'll use AI to spot more prostate cancer, says Science Secretary
Artificial Intelligence will be harnessed to find hidden cases of prostate cancer, the Science Secretary has said. Peter Kyle told The Telegraph that the Government is investing £168m on initiatives to use public data better and one major goal is to improve cancer screening on the NHS. A world-leading initiative led by Cancer Research UK has been given £10m in funding to improve cancer screening methods by identifying the most at-risk people and offering them personalised tests. The funding will 'develop AI-powered tools that can predict cancer risk', Mr Kyle said, and could save thousands of lives a year. The Telegraph has launched a campaign calling for a targeted national screening programme for prostate cancer, which focusses on men who are at the greatest risk. This includes men over 50, black men, whose risk is twice that of white men, and those with a family history of prostate cancer. Steve McQueen, Bob Willis and Chris Hoy are some of the high-profile British men to be recently diagnosed with the condition. Around 55,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer annually in England and around 33 men a day die from the condition. Writing for The Telegraph alongside Stian Westlake, the executive chairman of the Economic and Social Research Council, Mr Kyle said: 'This funding will support work on a project linking health records to demographics, family history and behaviour to identify those at higher risk of this devastating illness, so that it can be treated early – potentially saving thousands of lives every year.' The plan is to create flexible national screening programmes which can pick up more cases in individuals who may otherwise be missed and diagnosed only when the cancer was incurable. Officials are hoping to replicate the success of BRCA1 genetic screening. Around one in 400 people has faulty BRCA genes, which give women a 60 per cent chance of developing breast cancer. This received widespread attention and became known as the 'Angelina Jolie gene' after the Hollywood actress underwent a double mastectomy after finding out she was a carrier in 2013. The NHS now offers genetic tests to high-risk groups, such as Jewish women, to catch as many cases early as possible. Mr Kyle said: 'Just as BRCA gene screening, heroically brought to the fore by campaigners including Angelina Jolie, revolutionised how we understand and manage the risk of hereditary breast cancer, this next generation of data-driven screening could do the same for more cancers, including prostate cancer.' Scientists running the scheme hope it can enable the NHS to offer more frequent cancer screening sessions or screening at a younger age to those at higher risk, while those at lower risk could be spared unnecessary tests. People identified as higher risk could also be sent for cancer testing faster when they go to their GP with possible symptoms. The wider Administrative Data Partnership will last until 2031 and try to repurpose data that already exists to make improvements to the judicial service, education, health and other public sectors. Combining, standardising and interpreting different datasets simultaneously is a daunting challenge for scientists owing to decades of independent data collection and little crossover. However, the Government believes that vast data reserves, combined with the power of AI computing, could transform healthcare. The cancer screening project will build new models over the next five years to merge relevant data as well as creating algorithms which will process it and ensure the results are accurate and reliable. Antonis Antoniou, the programme director and professor of cancer risk prediction at the University of Cambridge, said: 'The UK's strengths in population-scale data resources, combined with advanced analytical tools like AI, offer tremendous opportunities to link disparate datasets and uncover clues that could lead to earlier detection, diagnosis, and prevention of more cancers.' Dr David Crosby, the head of prevention and early detection research at Cancer Research UK, told The Telegraph: 'The single most important thing we can do to beat cancer is to find it earlier, when treatment is more likely to be successful. 'With half a million cancer cases per year expected in the UK by 2040, we need a major shift towards more accurate diagnosis and detection of early cancer. 'The Cancer Data Driven Detection programme will link health data sources together and build the powerful new tools doctors need to identify those at highest risk of cancer and prioritise resources towards them. 'Moving towards a preventative approach to healthcare will not be easy and will take time. Cancer Research UK's investment in the programme is an investment in the future of cancer care.' Data is the key to changing lives for the better By Peter Kyle and Stian Westlake For much of our everyday lives, data is king – from digital maps getting us from A to B, to health apps keeping our fitness and sleep in check, to even streaming platforms suggesting the next drama we might want to get stuck into. For this government, making good use of data is the difference between successful policies that are rooted in evidence, and those that rely on hope, luck or intuition, which no minister, legislator or council leader wants to rely on. Ultimately data is the bedrock of decision-making, ensuring policies, programmes and funding are doing what they are intended to do – changing lives for the better. Linking data from across government to the national pupil database for example can help to really dig into the source of inequalities that trap too many Brits from childhood through to the labour market – helping us to take targeted action in boosting social mobility and shattering glass ceilings. Or by better applying it in the justice system, we can understand patterns of reoffending, stopping career criminals from inflicting more misery on the law-abiding majority. And it can forecast the impact that this government extending the national living wage has on younger workers, so that millions more who put the hours in take home the pay they deserve. What unites all of these examples is that they were all made possible by UKRI's administrative data research UK partnership. It works to connect, and make sense of, the huge wealth of data that is generated by government services, bringing it to our world class researchers securely and with the public's privacy at heart since 2018. In short it has been demonstrating the role data can play in improving lives in as many ways as we can imagine and more. But we know we can go further and too many social and economic researchers – many of the very best of whom are right here in the UK – simply can't access the data they need. It is fragmented and siloed, held in different datasets by different public organisations. That means too many rely instead on insights from abroad, which while offering much, simply can't tell the full story of life in Britain in 2025. Accessing the raw resource of all that data and translating it into a form that researchers can use is no easy task, and while we need to grow our data science expertise, we also need to build relationships and make the case to other organisations that secure data sharing has the power to change lives. That is why UKRI is investing a further £168m to continue ADR UK's programme of work through to 2031. This includes continuing our partnership with Cancer Research UK to develop AI-powered tools that can predict cancer risk based on health records, family history and behaviour. Just as BRCA gene screening, heroically brought to the fore by campaigners including Angelina Jolie, revolutionised how we understand and manage the risk of hereditary breast cancer, this next generation of data-driven screening could do the same for more cancers, including prostate cancer. This funding will support work with organisations and charities like Cancer Research UK for example, on a project linking health records to demographics, family history, and behaviour to identify those at higher risk of this devastating illness, so that it can be treated early – potentially saving thousands of lives every year. The ADR will also offer learnings for and help us shape our new national data library, a central government resource designed to bring together existing research programmes and make it easier for policymakers and public bodies to access and use data securely to improve public services. As the incredible opportunities and challenges of technology like AI advance at unprecedented speeds and as we grapple with the fate of our planet as our climate changes, using data to drive policy for the generations to come has never been more important. This government is driven by a plan for change that will transform the lives of the British people, from growing our economy so that our payslips go further, to unlocking opportunity for everyone regardless of background, and building an NHS that is fit for the future and makes the most of the opportunities in new technology. Data can play a huge part in getting that right and targeting government support where it is needed most.
