Commissioning carers services

The 2011 census identified that there were 23,403 carers in Salford and 6,449 of those were providing care for more than 50 hours a week.

This strategy builds on the commitments and successes of the previous carers strategy which was developed in 2008 and its implementation plans for the previous five years. It also combines with Salford's Young Carer Strategy which was developed in 2012, to ensure there is a single strategic document outlining the city's priorities for.

The strategy will provide a framework for ourselves and our partners to build on previous achievements, so that we can continue to work together and with carers, to support them in the best way we can.

This strategy sets out the commissioning intentions for the way in which Salford intends to support carers, over the three year period from 2013 to 2016. By 'commissioning intentions' we mean:

• Our overall vision for services and the principles and outcomes we aim to achieve
• Our understandings of the needs of our local community, and how we aim to meet them
• The specific changes we aim to make to services, both in terms of the type of services available, and the way those services operate
• The resources we expect to make available to these services
• How we will work with service providers within a procurement framework to achieve the above

Carers and employment

Salford City Council commissioned some research on behalf of the Health and Wellbeing Board. The focus of the work was on supporting carers in employment. This included a review of national policy, a literature review, approaching local employers to find out how much they knew about carers, and what policies they had in place to support carers in employment, and the views of carers were also sought.