GP & Healthcare Professionals

As a healthcare professional, you can refer carers to our service by completing a referral form. Please click here  to download the form, and email the completed version to referrals@camdencarers.org.uk.

Please ensure you have obtained the carers consent before making a referral. 

If you have any questions about our service, please do contact our Health Team at camdencarers@nhs.net. 

The Carers and Hospital Discharge Toolkit is a London‑wide resource created by NHS England with partners including Carers UK, Carers Trust, Mobilise and Carers First. It was developed to help healthcare professionals better identify, involve and support unpaid carers during the hospital discharge process. 

Carers play a vital role in ensuring safe and successful discharge from hospital. When carers are recognised and included in planning, patient outcomes improve, readmissions are reduced, and carers wellbeing is better supported.

The NCL Carers Support Project is a partnership initiative across the five NCL boroughs of Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Haringey and Islington. It’s designed to ensure unpaid carers are identified early and quickly connected to the right support.  

The NCL Carers Support Portal, is a referral tool that allows NHS staff to identify a carer, submit one easy form, and automatically link that carer with their local carers organisation. The carers organisation then contacts the carer directly to offer support. 

One of the main obstacles to carers getting the right support is identification – both self-identification and identification by health professionals. This document from Carers Trust highlights some of the good practice that has been developed by Carers Trust Network Partners.  

We offer free Carer Awareness Training to health professionals across Camden. Sessions are interactive, tailored, and can range in length from 10-minutes to 1-hour. All sessions cover how to identify and provide meaningful support to unpaid carers.  

You can watch an example of some joint training we delivered with Islington Carers Hub, here. To express your interest in a session, please email camdencarers@nhs.net.

The Camden Council Carers Action Plan is a boroughwide, coproduced commitment to better recognising and supporting unpaid carers, launched in July 2024. It outlines key principles and priority areas for improving how services work with carers, guided by a new Carers Borough Partnership Board.  
 
The plan includes a priority area focused on health services and hospital discharge, reflecting carers calls to be identified, involved and supported throughout the hospital journey.

The Health and Care Act 2022 strengthens the rights of unpaid carers by requiring NHS bodies and Integrated Care Boards to involve carers in key decisions about prevention, treatment and care.  

It also gives carers new legal rights at hospital discharge, meaning NHS trusts must involve them as early as possible when planning a patient’s discharge. Carers UK have detailed key provisions and rights for carers in this document. 

The NHS 10 Year Health Plan recognises unpaid carers as essential to the health system and commits to identifying them earlier across services. It introduces new measures such as Neighbourhood Health Service Plans and digital tools like the upcoming ‘My Carer’ section in the NHS App to better involve and support carers in care planning.  
 
Overall, the plan aims to embed unpaid carers as partners in care, ensuring they are recognised, valued and included throughout NHS pathways.