Why Specsavers Home Visits is shining a light on the often overlooked role of the unpaid carer

To highlight the value of carers – whose work is worth £184 billion to the UK economy – Specsavers Home Visits commissioned a portrait by artist Colin Davidson that was given the symbolic value of £184 billion by action house Roseberys.

The portrait is of a former nurse, Jaycee La Bouche, who now cares full-time for her 96-year-old mother, Aldith.

The artwork was unveiled at the Saatchi Gallery, in an event attended by carers and their families, including Jaycee.

Here, Home Visits retail director Chris Smith, who works as a domiciliary dispensing optician across Warwickshire, Oxfordshire and Worcestershire, tells OT why Specsavers has chosen to campaign on behalf carers.

Why does Specsavers feel it’s important to shed light on the value of unpaid carers?

We provide our eye care and ear care in a domiciliary setting, going out to see people who have a physical or a mental health condition. It’s the patient we’re seeing, and the patient who will have extra needs. But often, we will see not only the patient, but also the carer who is providing a service for that person. We get to see that first-hand.

Often, the carer is behind the scenes. But they are not just part of the picture – they are the picture. They are probably the person who has given us the call to book the appointment, and they’re the person that we can be talking to. It made us realise that we have this other person who we meet regularly, who is heavily involved in the care of our patients.

They can be a diverse bunch. It ranges from that 80-year-old spouse who is providing all the care that she can for her loved one to the full-time worker who is again providing as much care as they can, but also trying to raise a family and small children of their own. You’ve got these incredible people, who are all providing that level of care for their loved ones.

Carers UK does immense work up and down the country, trying to improve the quality of life for patients and their carers. For Specsavers Home Visits, getting involved in this space felt like the right thing to do.

Specsavers has highlighted that the value of unpaid carers in the UK is £184 billion – the equivalent of a second NHS. What is the importance of putting a monetary value on the work that unpaid carers are performing?

Hopefully it displays the gravity of this situation. These people can often go unseen and unheard. But this invisible care system has been estimated to be worth £184 billion. That’s a lot of money. It’s the cost of another NHS. That displays to us how much these people are providing behind the scenes.

That’s the point of this campaign: to make sure that those people, who are often unseen, get some recognition. That’s what we need to do. Hopefully we can put a spotlight on these people to make sure they receive the recognition that they truly deserve.

What specific changes would Specsavers like to see for unpaid carers?

We’ve got the Specsavers Carers’ Hub, where we provide online, practical advice and support. Hopefully this helps carers feel less alone when they’re navigating through this journey.

It’s the access to care that we feel passionate about. A domiciliary patient will have a physical or mental health condition, and that means they will have extra needs. These people can be the most vulnerable in our community, so they should have no barriers when accessing eye care.

Domiciliary eye care providers will have some barriers when trying to provide that care. The pre-visit notification (PVN) that domiciliary eye care providers have to adhere to is one example. We can only see a patient with at least 48 hours’ notice, because of those pre-visit notifications. That’s a barrier that exists in England – it has already been lifted in Scotland and Wales.

If we can make access to care even easier for those patients, and of course for those carers who have provided the support, then all the better. That’s what we aim for.

These people can be the most vulnerable in our community, so they should have no barriers when accessing eye care

What is the importance of removing the pre-visit notification (PVN), from the domiciliary perspective?

When we have to tell the patient or their carer that it is at least 48 hours before we can go and see them, that means that the patient is already having to wait to access that service. We’re left trying to explain why that is the case.

If it’s a care home and it’s more than two people, the PVN is three weeks. It’s quite a chunk of time for that patient to have to wait to receive that service.

We’ve also identified that people in a domiciliary setting, who have a physical or a mental health condition, may have left it a bit longer to organise appointments. The carers have so many things on their list that they’re trying to tick off. Booking in for a sight test and getting us to visit them at home should be easy, but as it stands with the PVN, it's another example of them having to wait and get scheduled in. It’s another barrier in place. They have enough to be dealing with, and we’re passionate about making these things easier.

The potential emotional isolation that carers might be feeling was a recurring theme in the Most valuable portrait exhibition. What is the importance of tackling that?

With the Specsavers Carers Hub, we have done a lot of work with Carers UK already. The online, practical support and advice that we provide will hopefully work towards making sure that those carers don’t feel that they’re alone when they are navigating through this journey of providing care.

Those people that we see, in the domiciliary setting, sometimes feel as though they don’t have the contact that they might have done previously, because they may be bed-bound or house-bound. Carers are brought in on that as well. They are working tirelessly to provide that care. They can feel as though they are just turning the cogs, and that’s where that emotional isolation can come from. If we can bridge that gap, that’s what we aim to do.

How did the idea for the Most valuable portrait come about?

It came from the insight that unpaid carers are providing care worth £184 billion pounds a year. We wanted to create something that was valued at the same amount as this invisible care system in the UK. We felt that a piece of art that celebrates the wide range of carers, that gives them the recognition that they deserve, and represents all that they provide, symbolically valued at that staggering number, would link those things together.

Does the support for unpaid carers feed into wider inclusivity aims that Specsavers has?

Yes, it does. It goes back to the subject of access to care. We’re calling for equitable access to care: removing all these unnecessary barriers to eye health services for people who can’t leave their homes unaccompanied, and those in care homes. It’s about making it as easy as it can be for those people. They’re the most vulnerable people in our community. By default, they have a physical or a mental health condition, so they already have these extra needs. There are things that have been put in place to see those patients. We shouldn’t have barriers on top of that as well.

Read more

Specsavers event shines light on the value of unpaid carers

Specsavers Home Visits has partnered with Carers UK to highlight the work of unpaid carers