Valuing Carers in Health Services Forum

Carers tell us that medical/health care is a major part of care roles and data from the ABS reveals that 63% of primary carers provide health care assistance to the person(s) they are caring for. Rates of disability increase with age and older people use primary health and hospital services more than younger Australians. Carers’ interactions and engagement with health services are vital to an efficient system and it’s safe to say that without carers, the healthcare system would be quite overwhelmed. Australia’s current healthcare workforce is only 25% of the estimated carer population.

As the ‘transfer of risk’ increases to reduce government health spending, care roles will consequently become more complex and intense. Yet, carers commonly report low levels of involvement in treatment discussion and planning, information provision and sufficient supports and facilities for them in hospital settings.

Carers Victoria and MARC will host a workshop on Wednesday 27th November with the intention of bringing together researchers, clinicians, service providers and advocates to explore how carers of people using health services can better recognised, supported and included. This will contribute to improvements in health outcomes for care recipients but also contribute to improvements in carers’ own health and wellbeing which is much lower compared to those who are not in care roles.

The purpose of the Forum is two-fold: Carers Victoria would like to hear ideas and thoughts which could contribute to a policy development submission for next year, and the MARC team would like to bring interested parties together to potentially develop a research proposal in this area, ready for any funding opportunity which arises.

Registration is free to attend for MARC partners and members

If you would like more information on the forum please contact either:

Program details and speaker information are available on this link and detailed below.