Ministerial Advisory Group for Unpaid Carers meeting: 25 September 2025

•    Kate Cubbage, Carers Alliance and Carers Trust Wales - Chair
•    Alyson Hoskins, ADSS Cymru and Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council – Deputy chair
•    Denise Moultrie, Welsh Government
•    Louise Bushell-Bauers, Care Inspectorate Wales
•    Jayne Newman, Unpaid Carer
•    Bobbie-Jo Haarhoff, Unpaid Carer
•    Albie Sutton, Young Carers Advisory Board
•    Rob Simkins, Carers Alliance and Carers Wales
•    Jon Antoniazzi, Carers Alliance and Marie Curie
•    David Watkins, Cwm Taff Morgannwg University Health Board
•    Valerie Billingham, Older People’s Commissioners Office
•    Kathy Proudfoot, Carers Officers Learning and Improvement Network.
•    Nick Andrews, Swansea University
•    Dan Burrows, Cardiff University
•    Kate Young, Wales Carers Alliance and All Wales Forum 
•    R Williams, Carers Alliance and Parkinsons UK
•    Victoria Lloyd, Age Cymru 
•    Tanya Tye, Cwm Taff Morgannwg University Health Board
•    Rachel Wright, Betsi Cadwalader University Health Board
•    Myfanwy Moran, ADSS Cymru and Newport City Council
•    Anna Bird, Hywel Dda University Health Board
•    Lois Roffe, Care Inspectorate Wales
•    Ffion Scott, Young Carers Advisory Board
•    Naheed Annashraf, Aneurin Bevan University Health Board
•    Nicki Harrison, ADSS Cymru
•    Suzanne Becquer Moreno, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board 
•    Trudy Heald, Welsh Government
•    Amanda Phillips, Welsh Government

• Jon Day, Social Care Wales
• Kim Dolphin, Carers Officers Learning and Improvement Network
• Naomi Harper, Flintshire County Council
• Amy Hawkins, ADSS Cymru and Swansea Council
• Josie Yuen, Public Health Wales
• Adam Frewen, Care Inspectorate Wales

The Chair opened the meeting by welcoming attendees and introduced the content of the day ahead. 

The Minister welcomed Albie Sutton as the new young carer representative and introduced Alyson Hoskins as the new Deputy Chair. 

The Minister noted the importance of hearing directly from young carers and talked about her recent attendance at the Young Carers Festival where she participated in the Young Carers Advisory Board meeting. She noted her intention to discuss the issues raised at that meeting with her officials.

The Minister referred to the engagement work undertaken with unpaid carers and their representatives across Wales to inform the development of the new National Strategy for Unpaid Carers. The Minister acknowledged the role of those in attendance in ensuring a broad range of perspectives are considered in producing the strategy.

The Minister thanked Alyson Hoskins for leading on action plan regarding information, advice and assistance to unpaid carers and carers’ needs assessments and to colleagues for their ongoing support.

In addition, Denise Moultrie welcomed Ffion Scott as a representative for the Young Carers Advisory Board. 

Alyson Hoskins noted previous engagement with social care leaders and unpaid carers via a series of workshops. The engagement has led to the development of an action plan, key priorities are:

• improved identification and engagement with carers at the ‘front door’ of local authority social services (Information, advice and assistance (IAA)
• delivery of carers needs’ assessments by practitioners
• carers understanding of what they should expect from assessments
• improvements in consistent recording practice
• maintaining contact with carers and reviews 

 The action plan will be discussed at the Task and Finish Group and further comments from the group were welcomed.

Denise Moultrie provided an update on the pre consultation exercise for the development of the draft strategy. Key themes emerging from the engagement with unpaid carers and stakeholders were shared with the group. 

Today’s meeting includes workshop to aid the development of the draft strategy. This will go out to public consultation, likely in January. The finalised strategy will be published in 2026, following the Senedd election. The steering group will continue to oversee the development of the strategy. 

Lois Roffe, Amanda Phillps and Trudy Heald were thanked for their support with this work.

Nick Andrews advised the group of a successful first meeting of a new community of practise focussing on unpaid carers. Topics that were raised included: 

• achieving better mental health outcomes
• engagement with male carers
• better identification of unpaid carers
• information management
• discharge plans
• the short breaks scheme

The group will continue to meet on a quarterly basis. 

Dan Burrows provided an update on his team’s research which included findings on mental health, income demographics, poverty and suicide risk. A video which illustrated life as a parent carer was shared with the group: More than a parent - University of Birmingham.

The group received an update on the Short Break Scheme and Carer Support Fund, discussing its impact and outcomes. Members agreed it would be helpful to receive evaluation data, ideally broken down by local authority.

Both schemes were recognised as having positive impacts on carers and were regarded as valuable.

Group members received a paper that summarised the main themes that had emerged from the pre-consultation exercise and were advised that these had informed the questions to be considered in the subsequent workshop activity. The themes were:

• financial hardship
• access to services
• support for underrepresented groups
• employment
• mental health and emotional wellbeing
• respite and breaks from caring
• identification and recognition
• Young Carers
• carers in relation to services for the people they care for

Members were split into two groups to undertake discussions around the themes identified.

Discussions were framed around identification of objectives that if achieved would respond to the themes. Actions and measures that would help to achieve the proposed objectives were also discussed and recorded.

Members were thanked for their valuable contributions to this exercise, which would inform the draft strategy.

Confirmed all actions completed.

10 December 2025