The short answer
- You are one of millions doing thisCensus 2021 counted 5.0 million unpaid carers in England and Wales. Support exists because caring alone is hard, not because you are managing it badly.
- Ask your council for a carer's assessmentIt is free, separate from any assessment of your parent, and looks at what caring is doing to your own health, sleep, work and finances.
- National charities and local centres exist for thisCarers UK, Carers Trust and Age UK all give advice and often a local group, and charities built around a specific diagnosis go further still.
- A group helps you carry the feeling. Paid hours take the task awayThey solve different problems, so it helps to have both rather than choosing one.
Contact details and figures on this page are current for September 2026. Paid care figures are what carers on PrimeCarers charge, with our fee included; every charity and helpline listed is free to use.
Why it matters
Why you need support beyond the person you are caring for
Looking after a parent or partner can narrow your life around the caring until there is little else left. That is common, and it is exactly why support for carers exists.
Meals get skipped, your own health checks get missed, and conversations with friends dry up because there is little else to talk about. None of that means you are managing badly. It means the situation is what it is, and a great many people find themselves in the same position without expecting to.
Census 2021 counted 5.0 million unpaid carers in England and Wales, roughly 9% of the population aged five and over, and a substantial number of them are caring for 50 hours a week or more. The signs that caring is starting to cost you something are worth watching for early, because they are easier to act on before they become a crisis than after. Caring for the caregiver covers what to watch for in your own wellbeing while you look after someone else.
A support network usually has four parts, and each one does a different job. The map below shows where each sits, and every section on this page covers how to reach it.
- 1How to ask well →
Family, friends and neighbours
Often the quickest to arrange, and the hardest to ask.
- 2How to get one →
A carer's assessment from your council
A free, statutory look at what caring is doing to you, separate from any assessment of your parent.
- 3Where to find them →
National charities, local centres and condition groups
Carers UK, Carers Trust, Age UK, groups built around your parent's diagnosis, and a faith community if you have one.
- 4Why this belongs on the list too →
Paid, practical help
Hours you can book, so the load some weeks is not only yours to carry.
Closest to home
Asking family, friends and neighbours without the guilt
The people around you often want to help and simply do not know how. Turning a vague offer into a specific, repeated task is usually what makes it happen.
Well-meaning people say "let me know if you need anything", and then nothing changes, because nobody has been asked to do anything in particular. A sibling who lives an hour away cannot help with the morning routine, but might take over the online food shop, or a weekly phone call that buys you a quiet evening. A neighbour is unlikely to offer personal care, but will often collect a prescription or sit with your parent for half an hour while you go to an appointment of your own.
What tends to work
- A specific ask for a specific day: "could you do the Tuesday shop?" rather than "can you help sometimes?"
- A standing arrangement, the same day and time each week, so it survives a busy week rather than needing to be renegotiated
- Saying what the help is for, so "so I can get a full night's sleep" is easier to say yes to than an unexplained request
- Accepting a smaller offer than the one you wanted, and asking someone else for the rest
What tends to stall
- Waiting for people to notice what needs doing and offer it unprompted
- Turning down help because it is not exactly the help you had in mind
- Assuming a relative who has not offered does not want to be asked
- Feeling you must repay every favour before you can ask for another one
None of this replaces paid care or a formal support group. It sits alongside them, and for many families it is the difference between a rota that survives a bad week and one that collapses the first time somebody else is unwell. If asking for help is itself the hard part, that matters too: looking after your own wellbeing is part of being able to keep caring at all.
The free route
The carer's assessment looks at your needs, not only your parent's
Councils in England have a legal duty to assess a carer's own needs, separately from any assessment of the person being cared for.
Under the Care Act 2014, anyone providing regular care for another adult can ask their council for a carer's assessment, whatever their own financial situation and whatever the person they care for has or has not been assessed as needing. The assessment is a conversation about how caring affects your health, sleep, work and time for yourself, and it ends with a written support plan. That plan might point to a short break, help with transport, equipment, or simply being formally recognised as a carer so services stop treating you as an afterthought.
The assessment itself is free. Whether a service recommended afterwards costs you anything depends on a separate, means-tested financial assessment, in the same way funding for your parent's own care does. What a carer's assessment covers sets out the fuller picture.
- 1
Contact adult social services
Free, any timeCall or use the online form on your council's website and ask for a carer's assessment. You do not need your parent's permission, and you do not need to already be receiving any support. - 2
The assessment conversation
45 to 60 minutes, typicallyA social worker or an assessor asks about your caring role, your own health, whether you work or want to, and what would make the biggest difference. It can happen by phone, video call or in person. - 3
The support plan
Written, usually within a few weeksThis sets out what you are eligible for, which might include a short break, training, equipment, or a direct payment you can put toward help of your own choosing. - 4
If the plan falls short
Push furtherIf the plan does not match what the assessment found, or the council is slow to respond, Carers UK's helpline gives free advice on what to do next, including how to complain formally.
Where to look
National charities, local centres and groups built around a diagnosis
You do not have to search from nothing. These organisations are where carers turn first, and most can point you toward a local group as well as give advice over the phone. A faith community, if you have one, is worth adding to the list too.
If your parent has a specific diagnosis, a charity built around that condition often knows the day-to-day detail a general group cannot. Alzheimer's Society's Dementia Directory searches by postcode for local dementia support. Macmillan's support line takes calls from anyone caring for someone with cancer, family included, seven days a week. Parkinson's UK runs more than 475 local groups open to carers as well as people with the condition, plus online and WhatsApp groups if none of the in-person ones fit your week.
If a weekly meeting does not fit around caring, an online forum can be the easier way in. Carers UK's own Carers Connect is free and open at any time of day, and most of the charities above run a Facebook or WhatsApp group alongside their in-person ones.
A church, mosque, synagogue or temple can be another source of support if you belong to one, whether that is a pastoral visitor, a prayer group, or simply people who will sit with your parent so you can get to a service. Carers UK's research into carers of faith found that 30% of carers who identify with a religion said it helped their own health and wellbeing, but only 7% had received support with their caring role from a faith organisation or place of worship. If nobody has offered, it is worth asking the pastoral or welfare team directly rather than assuming none exists.
Practical relief
Why practical relief matters as much as someone to talk to
A support group helps you carry how caring feels. It rarely takes an actual task off your day, and both of those are worth having.
Talking to people who understand what you are going through does something a checklist cannot: it reduces the sense that nobody else has faced what you are facing. But it will not get you an unbroken night's sleep, do the shopping, or sit with your parent while you go to your own GP appointment. That takes an actual pair of hands, whether that is a family member on a rota, a paid carer for a few hours, or a short break arranged through your council.
If a paid carer is part of the answer, it does not have to mean handing everything over. A few hours a week, booked around the tasks that are hardest to keep up with, can be enough to take the edge off. Carers on PrimeCarers charge £18 to £25 an hour for a single visit, our fee included, against £28 to £35 typically charged by an agency for the same visit. PrimeCarers introduces you to a self-employed carer; it does not provide or manage the care itself.
| Best for | What it costs | |
|---|---|---|
| An hourly private carer | A regular task at a fixed time: the morning routine, the weekly shop, an appointment | £18 to £25 an hour, our fee included |
| Overnight care | A full night's sleep when your parent is unsettled or at risk after dark | £130 to £160 a night, depending on whether the carer stays awake |
| A short break or respite stay | A few days off entirely: a holiday, an operation of your own, or simply to stop | Varies by provider; ask your council whether it can be funded after a carer's assessment |
| Family or a friend on a rota | Regular small tasks, spread so no one person carries all of them | Free, but depends on people continuing to say yes |
An hourly private carer
- Best for
- A regular task at a fixed time: the morning routine, the weekly shop, an appointment
- What it costs
- £18 to £25 an hour, our fee included
Overnight care
- Best for
- A full night's sleep when your parent is unsettled or at risk after dark
- What it costs
- £130 to £160 a night, depending on whether the carer stays awake
A short break or respite stay
- Best for
- A few days off entirely: a holiday, an operation of your own, or simply to stop
- What it costs
- Varies by provider; ask your council whether it can be funded after a carer's assessment
Family or a friend on a rota
- Best for
- Regular small tasks, spread so no one person carries all of them
- What it costs
- Free, but depends on people continuing to say yes
Paid care figures are what carers on PrimeCarers charge, with our fee included, correct for September 2026.
Respite care sets out how a longer break is arranged and funded, and overnight care so the family carer can sleep looks specifically at broken nights. How many visits a week does my parent need is the place to start if daytime hours would help most.
This week
Where to start if all of this feels like too much to arrange
You do not have to do everything on this page at once. Pick one thing from the list below and do it this week.
- 1
Ring one number
10 minutesCarers UK's helpline (0808 808 7777, Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm) or your nearest Carers Trust centre, found by postcode. Either call is free and commits you to nothing. - 2
Ask your council for a carer's assessment
FreeIt can take a few weeks to arrange, so starting it now means it is under way while you try other things. - 3
Make one specific ask of one person
This weekA sibling, a friend, or a neighbour. Ask for one thing, on one day, and see how it goes before asking for more. - 4
If paid hours would help most, see how to find a carer
Free to searchRead how to find a private carer, which covers where to look and what to check, so you are not searching from nothing.
Questions
Questions carers ask about support networks
Yes, they are separate. A care needs assessment looks at what your parent needs. A carer's assessment looks at what caring is doing to you: your health, sleep, work and finances, and it can happen whether or not your parent has had their own assessment, or wants one. What a carer's assessment covers has the fuller detail.
No. The Care Act 2014 gives anyone providing regular care for another adult the right to ask for an assessment, whatever the number of hours and whatever your own financial situation. Contact your council's adult social services team to ask for one.
The assessment itself is free and not means-tested. Whether a service recommended afterwards costs you anything, such as a paid short break, depends on a separate financial assessment, in the same way funding for your parent's own care does.
Push it. Ask your council in writing for a timeline, and if that goes nowhere, Carers UK's helpline gives free advice on what to do next, including how to complain formally. Some areas simply have more to offer than others, which is one reason national charities and online groups matter alongside anything local.
For a lot of people, yes, particularly when getting out to a meeting is itself the problem. Carers UK's Carers Connect forum and condition-specific Facebook and WhatsApp groups run by charities such as Parkinson's UK are free and open at any time of day. A local group adds face-to-face company a forum cannot, so it is worth trying both rather than choosing between them.
Start with the charity built around that condition. Alzheimer's Society's Dementia Directory searches by postcode, Macmillan's support line takes calls from carers as well as people with cancer, and Parkinson's UK lists local and online groups. A GP or a social prescribing link worker at your surgery can often point you toward others.
It is a break, not a failure. Booking a few hours or a night of paid care so you sleep properly, eat properly, or see your own GP is the same idea as a family member taking a shift, just paid for. How to find a private carer covers where to look and what to check before you book.