Dyma erthygl Sioned Williams AS am werth gofalwyr di-dâl
Cyhoeddwyd yr erthygl hon yn y Glamorgan Gazette ddydd Iau 12 Mehefin 2025 (yn Saesneg).
Carers Week 2025
Nearly half the people of Wales have provided unpaid care at some point in their lives, with 1 in every 5 currently caring for a family member, friend or neighbour.
This week marks Carers’ Week, an annual campaign to celebrate our wonderful carers, and also help highlight some of the challenges they face.
This year the theme is ‘Caring About Equality’ because unpaid carers are at a greater risk of poverty, social isolation and poor health.
When you have caring responsibilities, it impacts on the time you have to do other things, like have a social life or look after your own health and wellbeing. It also limits your ability to earn money. A worrying number of carers said they had to cut down on their working hours because of caring responsibilities, and 1 in 14 had to give up paid work altogether.
Not surprisingly, when asked in a recent survey what would help them most, over half of all carers in Wales said having higher levels of financial support from the Government.
This ask is not unreasonable. Of the 5.8 million carers in the UK, they’re estimated to contribute £184 billion to the UK economy. Of course, unpaid carers do the job because they care, but the fact remains that the unpaid work they do has a real value to government.
That’s why it’s good that such a thing as Carers’ Allowance exists and why it’s such a bad thing that recent changes proposed by the Labour UK Government threatens people’s ability to claim it.
You see, Carers’ Allowance is only paid to people who look after someone in receipt of disability benefit such PIP, and with Westminster’s proposed changes, the charity Carers UK estimate that 150,000 unpaid carers will lose their benefits entitlement.
Carers are already struggling, they already face a greater risk of poverty, and now they face a threat to what little help they already receive. Whether by design or simply lack of foresight as to the consequences of their actions, our carers deserve so much better from their government.