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A Family Carer is a person of any age who takes on the responsibility of looking after a close family member, a relative or friend, who cannot manage at home without help because of frailty, illness or a mental or physical disability. This population is not static, but changes as people move in and out of the caring role, with the majority of people providing care at some point in their lives. The diversity of Family Carers with respect to age, ethnicity, social financial backgrounds is great and the work they do is almost always unrecognised.

The challenge for our society is to recognise the role that Family Carers occupy and to construct an adequate infrastructure, hence ensuring that those with caring responsibilities have adequate access to information, life long learning, flexibility and equality in working conditions and financial security. In our present environment, those who undertake the work of caring, two thirds of those being female, all experience significant difficulties and social isolation.