On 7 July 2026, Baroness Casey of Blackstock addressed the Local Government Association on the future of adult social care. She recognised the experience of carents: the millions of people managing the care of ageing parents who have, until now, been largely invisible to the system they are holding together.
Earlier this year, Carents submitted three research reports to the Casey Commission, drawing on the experiences of thousands of carents from across the UK. This speech shows they were heard.
Baroness Casey described the daughter who moved her mother in to care for her, only to find herself still struggling a decade later, battling for help and support at every step. She described a man in Newcastle who was handed two leaflets when his wife was diagnosed with dementia: one on how to claim PIP, one about council tax reduction. He did not need money. He needed to know what was going to happen to their lives. She named an estimated five million as the people holding the social care system together, and she said plainly: "Of course, families have a role to play here. But this is often just too much to ask."
That is the experience our community has been describing to us, and to the Commission, for months. It is significant that it is now being said at this level.
What the speech has recognised
The speech names something that has been true for a long time and rarely acknowledged so directly: there is no social care system. There is a collection of overlapping arrangements, all under pressure, all pulling in different directions, all dependent on ordinary people navigating their way through it without a map.
Our research has been documenting exactly this. Carents told us that when a parent's needs change, the state does not appear with a plan. You learn a new language, fill in forms you have never seen before, and make your case to strangers, often while holding down a job and worrying about your own health.
Baroness Casey said that any public service requiring navigators is failing. Carents was built to be that navigator. That we have to exist for this reason is itself evidence of the failure she describes.
She also named what the system does to the people caught inside it. "It makes the people who need care feel like they are a burden to the people they love." That sentence appears in no policy document we have read before at this level. It is what carents have been telling us. It is what we have been telling the Commission.
The evidence we submitted
Our Casey Commission submission, "Where Do I Even Start?", was built on 414 consented responses from carents asked directly about their experience of navigating social care. Its title is what carents tell us when a parent's needs change and they try to work out where to turn. In the speech, Baroness Casey describes a man who received two leaflets at the point of a dementia diagnosis and had no idea where to start. Our submission documents that experience across hundreds of families. 77% raised delays and assessments that arrived too late to be useful. 68% raised the absence of anyone who could coordinate their family's case. 44% had never formally registered their role with any service at all, and most had no idea they could.
Our second report, "Dementia: Who Really Cares?", drew on 2,016 dementia carents. Baroness Casey said people with dementia need support for their families, and that the system has its priorities wrong. Our report shows what those wrong priorities cost. 89% said the system only reacts at crisis point. 97% described being constantly on alert. 61% feel guilty asking for help. 54% feel ashamed to admit caring is hard.
Our third report, "The Hidden Toll", was our largest survey: 4,293 adults caring for an ageing parent. It found that 81% say carenting is treated by society as "just what you do, not something that deserves support." 93% have received a dismissive response when they tried to talk about what they are managing, from friends, siblings, employers, and sometimes from health and care professionals themselves. Baroness Casey asked what families should be expected to do. Our research shows what they are currently expected to absorb: everything, without acknowledgement, and in silence.
We support The Big Conversation
Carents welcomes the call for a Big Conversation on social care this summer. The four questions at its heart are the right ones: who should receive social care, what families should be asked to do, what people can expect from the state, and what people should contribute in return.
When the process opens for public submissions, we will let you know exactly how to get involved. Your voice belongs in this conversation and we will make sure it is heard.
