The short answer
- You do not have to work out the money aloneAttendance Allowance, council funding and Carer’s Allowance are worth checking before you assume none of it applies to you.
- Your own health needs protecting on purposeRegistering as a carer with your GP and asking for a carer’s assessment both exist for exactly this.
- You have more rights at work than you might thinkCarer’s leave and flexible working requests are both day-one rights, whatever your contract says.
- Getting your parent to accept help is a process, not one conversationRefusal, suspicion or an argumentative streak are common and usually not personal.
You are one of an estimated 5.8 million unpaid carers in the UK, according to Carers UK's State of Caring 2025 report. Most families find it is not one problem but several of these at once.
Where it comes from
The five pressures that build up together
Nobody sets out to become a carer, and the pressure rarely arrives as one clear problem. It is usually several of these at once, each making the others harder to deal with. Find the ones that sound like your week, and go straight to that section.
Money
Care at home, adaptations to the house and the ordinary costs of illness add up quickly, and it is not always obvious what help exists or how to claim it.
Nearly half of unpaid carers have cut back on essentials such as food and heating to cover the cost of caring.
Carers UK, State of Caring 2025
Time and your own health
Caring rarely arrives on a schedule, and the hours it takes are usually hours taken from your own rest, sleep or health.
Three in four unpaid carers say they feel stressed or anxious because of their caring role.
Carers UK, State of Caring 2025
Your job
Explaining an unpredictable caring role to an employer, and knowing what you can reasonably ask for, is a piece of work in itself.
An estimated 2.6 million people in the UK have given up work altogether to care for someone.
Carers UK
Your parent, and the rest of the family
A parent who will not accept help, or relatives who see the situation differently, can be harder to manage than the caring itself.
Deciding when to bring in paid help
Knowing when to stop doing everything yourself, and what a paid carer can safely take off your plate, is a decision most families put off longer than they need to.
Money
Where the money worry comes from, and where the help is
Care at home, taxis to appointments, a stairlift, higher heating bills: the costs of a parent's illness or decline are real and they add up before anyone has sat down to plan for them. Some of that cost has help attached, and it is worth checking before you assume none of it applies.
| Who it is for | What it pays | What to do first | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Attendance Allowance | Over State Pension age and needing help with personal care or supervision for six months or more. | about £77 or £115 a week | Ring the Attendance Allowance helpline or download the form from gov.uk. Describe your worst days, not your best. Age UK will help fill it in for free. |
| Council (local authority) funding | Anyone with eligible care needs and savings under £23,250 in England. The home is ignored while you live in it. | a contribution, sometimes the whole cost | Ask adult social care for a care-needs assessment. It is free and you are entitled to it whatever your savings. The financial assessment comes after. |
| Carer’s Allowance | The family member doing 35 hours or more a week of caring, earning under about £204 a week after deductions. | about £86 a week | Claim online at gov.uk once the person you care for has Attendance Allowance or a similar benefit in payment. |
| Paying yourself | Most families, for some or all of the cost, at least at first. | from about £20 an hour | Search your postcode to see actual rates, and read how to fund it without selling the house. |
Attendance Allowance
- Who it is for
- Over State Pension age and needing help with personal care or supervision for six months or more.
- What it pays
- about £77 or £115 a week
- What to do first
- Ring the Attendance Allowance helpline or download the form from gov.uk. Describe your worst days, not your best. Age UK will help fill it in for free.
Council (local authority) funding
- Who it is for
- Anyone with eligible care needs and savings under £23,250 in England. The home is ignored while you live in it.
- What it pays
- a contribution, sometimes the whole cost
- What to do first
- Ask adult social care for a care-needs assessment. It is free and you are entitled to it whatever your savings. The financial assessment comes after.
Carer’s Allowance
- Who it is for
- The family member doing 35 hours or more a week of caring, earning under about £204 a week after deductions.
- What it pays
- about £86 a week
- What to do first
- Claim online at gov.uk once the person you care for has Attendance Allowance or a similar benefit in payment.
Paying yourself
- Who it is for
- Most families, for some or all of the cost, at least at first.
- What it pays
- from about £20 an hour
- What to do first
- Search your postcode to see actual rates, and read how to fund it without selling the house.
Benefit figures are 2026/27 rates from gov.uk. Attendance Allowance and Carer's Allowance are not means-tested; council funding is. The full list of routes, including NHS Continuing Healthcare and direct payments, is on the funding care hub.
If your parent's needs are complex and mainly medical rather than about daily living, ask about NHS Continuing Healthcare before assuming the family has to pay. If the council has agreed to fund care but you would rather choose the carer yourself, ask for a direct payment instead of a council-arranged service. And if you are paying for some or all of it yourselves, how to privately fund care and the care cost calculator both help with the sums.
Time and your own health
Protecting your own health while you do this
Caring has a way of filling every hour it is given, and your own health is usually the first thing to be pushed aside. It does not have to be. There is support built for exactly this.
Worth doing in the next month, whatever else is happening
0 of 5 ticked
For your own health
To take some of the load off
If sleep, mood or your own health have been affected for more than a few weeks, what do caregivers need most? and what are the signs of caregiver burnout? are both written for that point, and respite care explains how a break is arranged and funded.
Your job
What you are entitled to ask your employer for
Explaining an unpredictable caring role to an employer is its own piece of work, and most people do not know what they are legally entitled to until they need it. Two rights are worth knowing before the next crisis, not during it.
- 1
Tell your manager before it becomes an emergency
As soon as you canA short conversation now, before you need to disappear at short notice, usually gets a better response than an unexplained absence later. - 2
Use carer’s leave for the days you cannot avoid
Up to 1 week a year, unpaidSince 6 April 2024, employees in Great Britain have a day-one right to up to a week of unpaid leave a year to arrange or provide care for a dependant. You can take it as single days, half days or in a block, and you only need to give a short notice period. - 3
Ask for flexible working if the pattern needs to be permanent
Also a day-one rightYou can request different hours, remote or hybrid working, or a compressed week from your first day in a job. Your employer must consider it and respond within a set time, and can only refuse for one of a small set of business reasons set out in law. - 4
If it is still too much, share the load rather than leave the job
Worth doing before you decide to resignA carer covering the hours you cannot is often cheaper than the income, pension and career cost of giving up work altogether. The section below on bringing in paid help sets out what that could look like.
Your parent, and the rest of the family
Getting everyone, including your parent, on the same page
A parent who will not accept help, or relatives who see the situation differently, can be harder to manage day to day than any of the practical caring itself. None of this is a sign that you are handling it badly.
If your parent refuses the idea of any help
Read next
If you have not found the words to raise it yet
Read next
If they are argumentative, suspicious or seem like a different person
Read next
If siblings disagree on what is needed, or who should do it
How do you get someone to accept care?, how do you tell someone they need care? and dealing with irrational elderly parents go into each of the first three in full. If the resistance or the personality change has come on quickly, especially alongside confusion or memory problems, it is worth reading about dementia care before assuming it is simply a difficult stage.
Questions
Questions families ask about the challenges of caring for a parent
Most families find it is not one thing but several at once: money, time, their own health, work and getting the parent to accept help. Carers UK’s State of Caring 2025 survey found that three in four unpaid carers feel stressed or anxious, and that nearly half have cut back on essentials such as food and heating to cover the cost of caring. Naming which of those pressures is hardest for you is usually the first useful step.
Guilt is extremely common among family carers and it is rarely a sign that you are falling short. It tends to ease when the practical pressure eases, for example when a task is shared with someone else or a carer takes on part of the week. How do I stop being resentful as a caregiver? covers the related feeling of resentment, which often sits alongside the guilt.
Sometimes, through Carer’s Allowance if you are doing 35 hours or more of caring a week and earning under the weekly limit, or in some cases by being paid directly by the council or by your parent if they are self-funding. Can my mum pay me to care for her? sets out the tax and council rules in full.
This is a common reaction, and it usually has little to do with the help itself. What is being resisted is often the sense of independence that accepting help seems to take away. How do you get someone to accept care? is written for exactly this point, and going gently, in small steps, usually works better than one big conversation.
Yes. Carer's Allowance pays about £86 a week if you are caring for 35 hours or more a week and earn under about £204 a week after deductions. It does not depend on your parent's savings, though it can affect some of your own other benefits. A carer's assessment from the council can also lead to separate support, such as funding for a short break.
Yes. Since 6 April 2024, employees in Great Britain have a day-one right to up to a week of unpaid carer’s leave a year, and a separate day-one right to request flexible working such as reduced or different hours. Neither depends on how long you have worked for your employer. Carer’s leave, on gov.uk has the notice periods.
Common signs are missing your own appointments to cover a visit, tasks such as washing or medication being skipped because nobody had time, and dreading the phone in case it is another problem. You do not need to hand over everything at once. Many families start with a few hours a week and build up from there. Hourly care explains how visits are booked and what they cover.