Carers and families

Carers play an essential role in helping those they care for stay well or get better. They provide a vital source of practical and emotional care and support that is often invaluable. 

Our Carers and Families Strategy 2018-21 sets out our commitment and priorities for carers and our plans to delivering the six key standards of the Triangle of Care.

Our commitment to carers

We will work with you as a partner

This means we will:

• Respect your role as an expert in the care and support of the person who uses our services
• Listen to what you say and communicate clearly with you
• Respect carers’ and patient confidentiality and work with you to overcome barriers to giving support and sharing information.

We will support you to get help and assistance when you need it

This means we will:

• Respond in a timely way to your needs and, in particular, during times of crisis
• Provide support which is tailored to your personal needs
• Signpost you to relevant information and advice and enable you to get help from the carer support services
• Take a ‘whole family’ approach to supporting carers, recognising the needs of young carers

We will train our staff to be aware of carers’ needs

This means we will:

• Ensure all our staff can identify carers and recognise their role as partners
• Enable our staff to respond quickly and flexibly
• Involve our staff in developing information, support and other services for carers
• Involve carers in training our staff. 

Your feedback as a carer

A Carers' Steering Monitoring group with representation from Devon and Torbay Carer organisations, carers, Devon Partnership NHS Trust staff and Torbay and Southern Devon Health and Care NHS Trust monitors the implementation of the Triangle of Care and collects feedback from carers about their experience of mental health services. We use their feedback to help improve the services we provide.