I’m 59 and, until recently, was my 92-year-old mother’s full-time carer. I gave up my career because I wanted to care for her and she wanted to remain at home with her daughter. I’d make that choice again.
What I question is whether we properly recognise and support people who provide this essential unpaid care - both while they are caring and when that role suddenly ends. Twice, when I sought help from social work, I was told, in effect, “but you receive Carer’s Allowance”.
That missed the point. I never wanted to stop caring for my mother. I was asking for a care-needs assessment, guidance and practical support to make caring at home possible. Instead, on both occasions I was sent away with a list of private care providers and their hourly rates.
For someone requiring constant care, this was nowhere near an adequate solution. At a point of considerable distress, I felt told that the problem was mine to solve.
The consequence was greater difficulty and discomfort for my mother and, ultimately, a hospital admission which I believe could have been avoided.
This is a profound disconnect: we rightly worry about delayed discharges and pressure on hospital beds, yet a frail older person who wants to remain at home can end up in hospital because the person providing their care has not been adequately supported. I do not blame individual social workers. This is a system issue; when services do not connect, the patient and carer suffer.
There is a second problem. Unpaid carers in Scotland provide care with an estimated economic value of £15.9 billion a year, according to Carers Scotland and the Centre for Care. Scotland’s 2022 Census recorded 627,700 unpaid carers, with the biggest increase since 2011 among people aged 50–64. I was one of them. For 18 months I provided full-time care for my mother.
Now, at 59, I’m suddenly unemployed and trying to re-enter the labour market. I have six higher-education qualifications and a long professional career across healthcare, education and management. I did not become unemployed because I had nothing to offer. I became unemployed because I spent 18 months providing a service society urgently needed.
Yet what recognition follows? What support helps an older carer back into employment? Where is recognition of the skills and experience acquired through caring? We expect people to work longer before receiving their pension, while many older carers face the disadvantage of a caring gap when they try to return.
Carer’s Allowance recognises that caring exists. It does not adequately recognise what caring costs the carer - or what happens when caring ends. Unpaid carers provide a service, helping people remain at home and reducing pressure on health and social care. We need to support them while they care, and recognise their contribution when they no longer do.
The day a carer is no longer needed should not be the day society stops recognising what they have given.
Dr Hazel Hynd, Largs.
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Uni degrees already devalued
Denis Bruce predicts university degrees could be on the verge of being devalued, following easy access to AI for students (Letters, September 25).
University degrees are already devalued by the significant increase in the number of young people attending uni. It has been reported in recent years that well over half the number of school leavers proceed to higher education.
Many young people are realising the unattractiveness of leaving university with significant debt and a degree which doesn’t necessarily boost employment opportunities. Universities will need to be switched on about AI, or it could be much worse for them than Mr Bruce fears.
Could it be terminal for some?
Ian W Thomson, Lenzie.
Football crazy
There has been a lot of discussion recently, in both articles and the letters page of The Herald, about the demise of Scottish football. Particularly the lack of home-grown talent.
Your front page article (“Support for football club forced to fold over 'absurd' wall rule”, The Herald, September 25) typifies perfectly the disregard with which the lower echelons and grassroots of the game are treated.
David Hay, Minard.
World Cup winnings: where are they?
Catriona C Clark, not for first time, makes a stout defence of John Swinney and crew flying business class to the World Cup (Letters, September 24).
She claims that she is sure the trip benefited Scotland financially to a much greater extent than the initial spend. I wonder why she thinks this, because the First Minister has released no information about what business he conducted, and what benefits may have resulted.
On the other hand, I am quite sure if there had indeed been any benefits accruing from the FM's trip we would have heard by now. But we haven't, have we?
Perhaps the FM would like to enlighten us. After all, we did pay for the trip.
Ian McNair, Cellardyke.
Christianity: Above and within
I write in regard to the letter about Christianity being a true calling (Letters, September 25), affirming the true nature of New Testament belief.
Faith is certainly not blind, as many modern atheist activists so often wrongly infer.
Immanuel Kant, the great German writer and intellectual, described two inescapable components to belief: “the starry sky above” and “the moral law within”.
James Hardy, Belfast.
Cacophony of cliches, continued
Following my letter on absurd use of language, your correspondent David Miller (Letters, September 25) is provoking analysis of the urgent need to leverage a more streamlined, transparent and time focused approach in modern communications.
I am happy to push the edge of the envelope to support him in his quest.
And, who knows, before long we might all be singing from the same hymn sheet.
Keith Swinley, Ayr.
Colonic irritation
Kevin McKenna's tendency to deploy semi-colons where they don't belong (“We all make embarrassing blunders. Why is this MSP being torn apart for hers?”, The Herald, September 24) reminds me of a letter I sent to the Herald many years ago.
It was duly published, but with one small correction.
The editor had replaced a semi-colon I used with a colon.
I never really figured out why the change was made, nor can I recall what the letter was about: that colon, though, has stayed with me ever since.
Peter Farrell, Glasgow.
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