Carers Rights Day: 5 Stats That Stopped Me In My Tracks

Carers Rights Day this week is dedicated to shining a light on the millions of people in the UK who provide care – paid and unpaid, formal and informal – often tirelessly and with a quiet love that doesn't always make the headlines. Especially as we walk into winter, when bills rise, bodies get tired, and overstretched services come under more pressure, it's important for us all to do more than applaud the work and say thank you. It’s a day about knowing your rights, which means we have to name the gaps, the injustices, and the emotional labour that sits behind the word “carer.” 

In my work with Tresacare and in my local community, I sit with care workers and people who need care every week. I hear the exhaustion in people's voices, the sparks of joy that keep them going, the humour that softens the heaviness, the racism they shoulder, and the worries about political divisions. There are so many stories to connect to, and there are some facts that really push me forward in advocacy.

1. Every day, 12,000 people become unpaid carers. 

Every single day, thousands of people step into caring roles – often without warning, support, and sometimes without the language to truly recognise their role. This is high-value work, it's the quiet backbone of this country. But it's often treated like a side-story, rather than the main architecture holding families and communities together. I often joke that it's not just babies who need a village to take care of them...at 31 years old with chronic illness & disabilities of my own, I certainly rely on my village! Connection is everything. (Carers UK)

2. One in four carers report ‘not good’ health for themselves

The physical toll of care is real: time, money, sleep loss, fatigue, chronic pain, worsening mental health. Care is love, yes – but love should not cost you your body. We talk about “resilience” as if it’s endless, but resilience isn’t a renewable resource when you’re doing the night shifts that no one sees. (Carers UK)

3. The UK care workforce is twice as likely to live in poverty compared to average workers 

That number raises my eyebrows. If carers are propping up society with their labour, yet the wages keep them marginalised, it's absolutely a political choice. The UK is the world's 6th richest nation by nominal GDP...poverty is a political choice. Around 1.6 million people worked in adult social care in England in 2023/24, and up to half of home-care workers were on zero-hours contracts. If you’re working in the system that supports people to live, age and be well with dignity – a human need that will never disappear – it is illogical that the workforce is held in this level of insecurity. Low security means less rest, less safety, and less power. And that has consequences not just for the carers, but for the people being cared for. (House of Commons Library)

4. Women provide most of the unpaid care – and racialised, migrant women face the toughest conditions.

Nearly 60% of unpaid carers are women...and when you zoom in further, you see how care work sits at the intersection of sex, gender, race, migration, class and immigration policy. Migrant and racialised women are key to this system but the conditions are often harsh, with restrictive visas, no guaranteed shifts, exploitative agencies, isolation, and an immigration environment that treats their labour as disposable. If we are serious about equity for women, equity for people of colour, we have to recognise the impact of underfunding, undervaluing and outsourcing the labour of care. (Carers UK)

5. Carers have rights, but most people don’t know they exist.

Flexible working, carers leave, involvement in hospital discharge, GP registration, protections under the Equality Act.These rights exist in theory – but rights you don’t know about, can’t access, or feel unsafe claiming may as well not be rights at all.Knowledge is power, and too many carers are navigating the system in the dark. And if this feels overwhelming, please reach out to organisations like Carers UK, Citizens Advice, Skills for Care, ACAS for more support.

Why this matters to us at Tresacare

Advocacy isn't an abstract term but an active one – just like the act of caring. Today we fight for the care worker who hasn't had a real break in months, but still shows up with tenderness. The carer sending money home while being denied guaranteed shifts and penalised for speaking up. We see the unpaid daughter skipping homework and deadlines to fill in paperwork for her parents. The people doing radical and profound work in a system that treats care as infinite, free, and endlessly available.

We are building our advocacy muscles as we work with people in the system who all see that a better, fairer future is possible. Carers Rights Day is a reminder that words are not enough: justice needs more policy, funding, cultural change, and the courage to name what isn’t working.