Still Game’s Jane McCarry teams up with North Lanarkshire Carers charity

Still Game’s Jane McCarry is helping to raise awareness of life as an unpaid carer.

Motherwell based North Lanarkshire Carers Together are launching a new podcast with the first episode featuring Still Game’s Isa (actor Jane McCarry) who shares her own experience as an unpaid carer. In a heartfelt discussion Jane describes the difficulties faced by people caring for loved ones, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Commenting on the lack of services available to people who needed support from care companies and local authorities during lockdowns, a situation continuing for many today, Jane states that unpaid carers are bearing the brunt of the impact:

“The [paid] carers just aren’t available so you’re being asked by authorities ‘can you pick up the pieces, what can you do, could neighbours step in, could friends, what else can be done…’ I know my friend the other day was asked ‘can she do more, can her and her sister who are working full time, what else can they do’ – because they’re so short on carers – and could they ask anyone to help.”

Jane describes the realities faced by unpaid carers across Scotland whereby people caring for family members, loved ones, friends and neighbours experienced a huge increase in their caring roles since the pandemic started, often with little or no respite at all.

The number of unpaid carers in the country is believed to have increased by 392,000 to over 1.1 million (this link will take you away from our website), meaning more people are living with the financial, emotional, and mental health impacts of a caring role with no end in sight.

In caring for her mum who sadly passed away in the last year, Jane understands first-hand the loneliness faced by unpaid carers and notes that the fear around caring for vulnerable loved ones has not gone away:

“We’ve been terrified of COVID-19 and that’s been fed to us every day in the media, and then you’re saying to people ‘that’s fine now, just go out and about’…so carers are also terrified, that because the world’s opening up, that they’re then going to bring something into somebody who’s vulnerable in the house. So, it’s this horrible situation where there’s fear of what they’re going to bring in, there’s also the isolation.”

Speaking on the lack of support offered to unpaid carers, Jane reflected on her own experience:

“I think if I’d have known there was somewhere you could contact that you could actually get some help and some advice… the rule is, to get Carers Allowance, it’s 35 hours a week or more. At the time when I was working, I certainly wasn’t doing that. Later on, with COVID-19, then it became that [many hours]…so, you weren’t entitled to anything, and you didn’t feel that you were.”

The reality for most unpaid carers in Scotland is reflected in Jane’s experience with the majority unable to access Carers Allowance due to the eligibility criteria. In addition, many people who care for loved ones do not even realise they are unpaid carers, and so don’t have any knowledge or awareness of the other supports on offer from carer centres across Scotland and from local authorities under the Carers (Scotland) Act 2016.

North Lanarkshire Carers Together, working with Jane on their inaugural podcast hope to raise awareness of life across the country for unpaid carers as well as highlighting the support that carers are entitled to access. The charity works to provide information on carers’ rights, signposts to support and services in the community and provides an advocacy service to ensure carers are able to access what they are entitled to from statutory services like social work and the NHS.

Colin Smith, Development Manager at North Lanarkshire Carers Together said:

“Jane’s story is an important one that highlights the difficulties faced every day by over a million unpaid carers across Scotland. We know that unpaid carers have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic, forced to navigate withdrawal of services, and to provide increasing hours of support to loved ones often with absolutely no rest and very little support.

“Far too many carers and their families across Scotland are at breaking point financially, emotionally and physically. More needs to be done now to provide increased support nationally and locally. We know that the statutory supports carers are entitled to are all too often not offered to them and this needs to change. Unpaid carers must be recognised as providing essential social care services in Scotland. Without them our social care system would fail.”

The podcast featuring Jane McCarry is available to listen to on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts, among other platforms.

Listen to the ‘Carers Together’ podcast by carers, for carers on Spotify (this link will take you away from our website).

For more information on North Lanarkshire Carers Together, visit their website (this link will take you away from our website).

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