Meeting of the Parliament 04 February 2016
I support the bill and I am pleased that it has reached and been amended at stage 3. I hope that it will provide a framework of support for the 745,000 adult carers and more than 44,000 young carers—that figure is just an estimate; the number of young carers may be double that. The implementation of the framework through the bill as amended will mean that hundreds of thousands of people will without doubt get the support that they need.
It is important to remember that caring for someone can have a mental and physical toll. Marie Curie notes the importance of providing support to carers of people with terminal illness, both during the time of their caring role and after it. A number of amendments sought to provide person-centred, specialised services. A major framework of action and support that can provide such services is of course the integration of health and social care. Integration joint boards will have the opportunity of providing those services, while avoiding duplication of work and giving carers more options. I thank the Scottish Government for its amendments and, in her absence, I thank Nanette Milne for her stage 2 amendments, which provided for far more involvement of carers in NHS procedures. The admission, care and discharge of a person can best be supported and facilitated when information on what is best for them is presented, and carers are the people who can best provide that information.
I was encouraged that a better definition for the timescales for the preparation of support plans was agreed at stage 2. The minister’s amendments set out better timescales for young and adult carers.
Other parts of the bill should be considered, such as whether eligibility criteria should be local or national. The decision was in favour of the local formulation. Should the bill be reviewed, it may be worth revisiting whether that allows for flexibility and adaptation to local needs and circumstances