Informal caregivers need more support from the government: SCP

People who care for a loved one need more support from the government, states the Netherlands Institute for Social Research (SCP). The informal caregivers should, for example, be able to take paid leave from the caregiving they have to provide. Minister Mirjam Sterk of Long-Term Care (CDA) will soon present a broad approach to supporting informal caregivers, her spokesperson told the ANP.

An expansion of the right to informal-care leave would allow people to combine helping others with paid work more effectively, the institute argues. Such a provision would, therefore, keep people from being forced to resign from their formal employment roles.

Because of population aging, more and more people will need care in the following years. At the same time, fewer people are available to provide it, even as the care sector already faces severe staff shortages. The political reasoning is that if people can receive help from their own circle, such as from friends and family, they can remain in their own homes longer and require less professional care, which, in turn, saves the money.

Many people are quite willing to help a loved one, “but willingness is not the same as actually doing it,” the SCP said. Informal caregivers often have jobs, families, or health problems of their own, the institute says. All of these demand time and energy, and “overload is a real problem.” The government, therefore, cannot simply call on “an unused reserve of informal care” in society. Such care, researchers say, is not “an obvious solution to shortages in formal care.”

According to the SCP, the government must first examine what informal caregivers themselves need. Only once that is in place “can there be sustainable informal care.”

The researchers argue that municipalities should arrange temporary replacements for informal caregivers so they have time to recover. This is known as respite care. Municipalities should also be required to provide psychological support to informal caregivers. The national government, the SCP stresses, must give municipalities sufficient funding to do so.

The researchers also want care providers to make clear agreements with informal caregivers in advance. “Explicit attention must be paid to the caregiver’s capacity to cope,” the SCP envisions.

The research makes it “plain that you cannot keep piling more onto the caregiver’s plate,” said Esther Hendriks, a board member of the national advocacy group for people who care for a loved one in need called MatelzorgNL. “It has to be organized properly so that people can continue to function.”

"Everyone wants to help when someone they love needs care,” Hendriks said. “But wanting to help is not the same as having the time and energy to do it. Caregivers need a form of recognition and better agreements about what happens when they cannot provide that care for a while.”

A spokesperson for the Association of Netherlands Municipalities (VNG) says a “major bottleneck" is that more support also costs more money. Moreover, the VNG argues that it is not solely up to municipalities to help informal caregivers; employers, schools, and care providers also have a role.