Carers Rights
and the Care Act 2014
Luke Clements
Overview
The Care Act 2014 repeals most of the principal adult social care statutes (as they apply in England ) – the laws that oblige social services’ departments to assess and to provide services for disabled, elderly and ill adults as well as their carers.
A major problem with the 2014 Act is revealed in its long title – namely that it is an ‘Act to make provision to reform the law relating to care and support for adults and the law relating to support for carers … .’ The problem being in the word ‘adults’: many of the ‘community care’ and ‘carers’ statutes also had provisions relating to children (ie young carers; disabled children and parent carers). As a result of a vigorous campaign by a number of disabled children’s and carers’ activists / organisations many of the problems concerning the rights of young carers, disabled children and parent carers have been addressed – but in large measure via the Children and Families Act 2014. These changes are considered at the end of these notes under the heading ‘Provisions relating to disabled children, young carers and parent carers’
