Hillingdon Carers

You may be working when you start your caring role.  It may be helpful to tell your employer about your situation. There are several things that you and your employer can do to help you combine your caring role with employment.

Talking to your employer

Caring for a disabled relative is often unpredictable and care arrangements can be complex, so you will need to talk to your employer about your concerns and commitments.

Think about how your employer could best help you and talk to them about your needs.

If you want to work, it is in your employer’s best interest to consider making reasonable changes to your work pattern to help you work and continue caring.

Flexible working arrangements

There are many different ways of working flexibly. You could work from home or have flexible starting or finishing times.

‘Flexible working’ is a phrase that describes any working pattern adapted to suit your needs. Common types of flexible working are:

• flexi time: choosing when to work (there’s usually a core period during which you have to work)
• annualised hours: your hours are worked out over a year (often set shifts with you deciding when to work the other hours)
• compressed hours: working your agreed hours over fewer days
• staggered hours: different starting, break and finishing times for employees in the same workplace
• job sharing: sharing a job designed for one person with someone else
• homeworking: working from home
• part time: working less than the normal hours, perhaps by working fewer days per week

Remember, this list is not exhaustive and there may be other forms of flexible working that are better suited to you and your employer.

The right to request flexible working regulations gives working parents of disabled children under 18 the right to request flexible working arrangements from their employer. You also have the legal right to ask your employer for flexible working if you are caring for an adult who is a relative or lives at the same address as you.

Special leave arrangements and time off in emergencies

If you are an ‘employee’, you have the right to unpaid time off work to deal with emergencies involving a ‘dependant’ – this could be your husband, wife, partner, child, parent, or anyone living in your household as a member of the family. A dependant may also be anyone who reasonably relies on you for help in an emergency, for example an elderly neighbour living alone who falls and breaks a leg and you are the closest on hand.

Most carers know they can get emergency leave, but there are other leave arrangements that your employer might be able to offer. They include:

• compassionate leave
• borrowing or buying leave
• career breaks

If you have legal parental responsibility for a disabled child under 18, you may have the right to take up to 18 weeks unpaid parental leave.

Carer’s assessment

The assessment is an opportunity for you to tell the social worker what impact caring has on you. So it may be a good idea to make a list of everything you do to look after the person you care for.

Some things you may want to think about are:

• do you get enough sleep?
• is your health affected by caring?
• can you leave the person you are looking after?
• are you worried about having to give up work?
• do you get enough time to yourself?

If you need help in your caring role you can ask your local Social Care Direct on 01895 556633 for a carer’s assessment.
This is to find out your needs and what help you might need to be able to continue to work.

Leaving work to care for someone

You may feel that you cannot combine employment and caring. Before you give up work, think about the options you have. If you do decide to give up work, there may be alternatives to resigning from your job.

Your employer may be able to offer you:

• a career break – this is an unpaid break from working which can last from six months to three years
• voluntary redundancy – if redundancies are being made, your employer may welcome a voluntary redundancy
• early retirement

Talk to your employer or someone in your human resources department to see if any of these options are available to you.