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35. Supporting older carers

Dr Stacey Rand discusses the importance of considering older carers and service users as a dyad, both of whom often support each other.

Older carers frequently have their own health or social care needs. The care provided within older couples is often mutual and reciprocal, rendering the terms ‘service user’ and ‘carer’ redundant. A more productive approach is to consider the needs of both together as a dyad, though this is not always straightforward in practice.

In this episode I speak to Dr Stacey Rand who has conducted research with practitioners about the feasibility of this approach in practice and found that many already consider the needs of both, though systems – and some managers – are often not prepared for this.

Dr Stacey Rand is a social care researcher at the Personal Social Services Research Unit at the University of Kent. Her research interests include unpaid family/friend carers, the quality and safety of care, and the application in policy and practice of social care outcomes for people who use services and their carers.

The full text of the paper can be accessed here:

Rand, S., Zhang, W., Collins, G., Silarova, B., & Milne, A. (2022) Applying a dyadic outcomes approach to supporting older carers and care-recipients: A qualitative study of social care professionals in England, Health and Social Care in the Community, doi.org/10.1111/hsc.13914

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‘Positive Energy’ by Scott Holmes Music is licensed under a Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International License.

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