During Carers Week, 8-14 June, Carers UK tell us:
The UK’s 5.8 million unpaid carers are the backbone of our communities.
Every day, they provide support to friends, family members, and loved ones. But are often overlooked, undervalued, and unsupported. They can face challenges in every part of their lives – affecting their health and wellbeing, education, careers and livelihoods, relationships, daily life, hopes and aspirations.
Carer friendly communities can help to change this. They turn understanding into action and make support part of everyday life.
There’s lots of different ways carer friendly communities can help, for instance:
- Work – offering flexible working to support employees to juggle paid work and caring People with a personal connection to ME/CFS who are living in the UK, including:
- Business and services – making everyday tasks easier for carers by offering flexible or priority access
- Community – sports clubs, faith groups, or community organisations creating opportunities for carers to feel connected
- Education – schools, colleges, or universities identifying young and young adult carers and putting support in place to help them reach their potential
- Health – GP practices, pharmacies or health services raising awareness amongst their staff to help identify and connect carers to support
- Social care – taking a whole-family approach to ensure everyone gets the help they need
- Work – offering flexible working to support employees to juggle paid work and caring
Get support
WAMES helpline Carers Trust Carers Wales Age Cymru local council
Read the report
Building carer friendly communities: Carers Week report 2026