Access to healthcare is often an area of difficulty for carers given the time commitments and pressures that they face. Carers identified provision of reliable and flexible care that is available to suit them and the person they look after as being essential to enable them to continue caring with confidence (NHS England Commitment to Carers, April 2014). Poor access can contribute to the negative health outcomes that carers’ experience. By offering flexibility with appointments for example outside normal clinic times and offering a home visit for those carers who cannot leave the person for whom they care in order to attend a surgery appointment improves access.

Using the above image as a scale where red is lowest and green is highest. How would you rate the below questions.

• How assured are you that carers of all ages have access to the right services at the right time and right place?
• How assured are you that services are accessible to carers of all ages?
• How assured are you about the level of engagement with carers with regard to access to services in you commission?
• How assured are you that all interactions with health care professionals results in the offer of support for the carer to an appropriate local service?

Ask yourself

• Do the services that you commission provide flexible appointment times to support carers?
• How do you ensure that out of hours services understand the carers’ perspective?
• Is there specialist support for young carers and young adult carers?

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