Carers UK and Virgin Media begin ‘ambitious’ partnership to help one million carers

24 Feb 2021 News

Helen Walker, chief executive of Carers UK

Carers UK and Virgin Media have launched a five-year partnership that will see the two organisations tackle loneliness among unpaid carers. 

Through the £2m strategic partnership they aim to support projects that create meaningful connections for one million unpaid carers, largely through digital technology. 

When Virgin Media began looking for a new partner its research highlighted loneliness was a key theme, even before the pandemic struck. After surveying customers, the company estimates that around a fifth of them are unpaid carers. 

Katie Buchanan, head of sustainability at Virgin Media, said: “We're really confident that this is the right issue for us. We feel we're coming at this with a holistic solution. We've got our people, and we've got our brand, and we've got our digital capability. And we're confident that those three things mean that this is a space that we can really go into together with Carers UK to make it make a huge positive impact.”

Helen Walker, chief executive of Carers UK, said that over the last year the charity has “learned how digital can support unpaid carers in a way that we didn't realise that before”. 

She explained: “The partnership empowers us to be so much more ambitious with what we want to do, and to reach so many more carers.” 

Virgin Media has also increased its annual paid volunteer leave for staff from one day to five days. With a workforce of 12,000 this means 450,000 hours will be available throughout the year. 

Five years 

Virgin Media’s previous five-year strategic partnership with Scope concluded last December. It moved away from having several charity partners to one long-term partner in 2015 when it selected Scope. 

Buchanan said that having just completed its first five-year partnership it feels like the right length of time. “Whilst it felt like a really long time, and a lifetime when we set that five-year period, it's gone in a flash.”

For Walker it means the charity has an element of stability. 

She said: “It gives us the confidence to be really, really ambitious with our plans for the future and to make sure that, that we're not shortchanging unpaid carers.” 

It also means that the two organisations have more flexibility and can change their approach if needed. 

Census campaign 

The figure Carers UK uses, 6.5 million unpaid carers, is taken from the last census in 2011. But Walker believes the true figure could be around 13 million, based on polling data. 

She said: “On average, it takes over two years to recognise that you are an unpaid carer. So it's really important to get that message out right now before the census on the 21 March.” 

One of the first things the partnership will be doing is a campaign ahead of the census next month to encourage people to recognised that they are a carer and says so. 

“We want to encourage as many unpaid carers to tick that box in the census that they can access support, and to help carers UK seek better funding and provision for carers and unpaid in the UK,” Buchanan said. 

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