Acarer is a person who, without payment, provides support to a partner, child, relative, friend or neighbour who could not manage without help. This could be due to age, physical or mental illness, addiction or disability. Although the Quality and Outcomes Framework rewards practices for identifying carers, only a small proportion of carers are on practice carer registers. Without identifying carers, it is impossible for carers to be involved in patient care or supported in primary care. This article outlines the challenges that you are likely to encounter trying to identify carers and ways in which more carers might be identified in primary care.
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RCGP/The Princess Royal Trust for Carers. Supporting carers: an action guide for General Practitioners and their teams. (2008) Accessed via static.carers.org/files/prtc-final-3640.pdf [date last accessed 30.12.2010].
