From Wellbeing Programmes to Person-Centred Wellbeing: It's Time to Care for Our Carers
We are asking carers to carry too much, for too long
There is a growing contradiction at the heart of our health and care system.
We depend on people to care for us when we are at our most vulnerable. We ask nurses, social care workers, support workers, healthcare professionals and unpaid family carers to give their time, energy, compassion and emotional strength – often day after day, year after year.
Yet the people providing that care are increasingly telling us that they are exhausted, overwhelmed and struggling themselves.
We know this. The statistics are there. The sickness absence, vacancies, burnout, staff turnover and growing demand are all telling the same story.
And still, we often respond by asking the individual to become more resilient.
We offer another wellbeing webinar.
Another app.
Another resilience session.
Another pathway into mental health services.
All of these things can have value. But are we really addressing the problem?
What if the issue isn't simply that carers need to cope better?
What if we have created systems and expectations that are asking too much of the people who care?
And what if our approach to wellbeing needs to become much more human, social and person-centred?
At Conscience Coaching and Consulting, we believe it is time to ask a fundamental question:
Who is caring for our carers?
Because as a society, we are currently letting them down.
Behind every statistic is a person
In January 2026, the NHS sickness absence rate in England was 5.7%. Anxiety, stress, depression and other psychiatric illnesses accounted for 27% of all sickness absence – more than 705,600 full-time equivalent days lost in that month alone.
The 2025 NHS Staff Survey found that 42.36% of staff had felt unwell because of work-related stress, while 31.47% said they felt burnt out because of their work. More than half – 56.01% – had gone to work despite not feeling well enough to perform their duties.
And social care is under enormous pressure too. In 2024/25 there were around 111,000 vacant adult social care posts, a vacancy rate of 7%.
These aren't just workforce statistics.
They represent people.
People working extra shifts because there aren't enough colleagues.
People finishing one emotionally demanding day and going home to provide unpaid care.
People who are exhausted but keep going because somebody else depends on them.
And people who may feel that asking for help means admitting they aren't coping.
The invisible workforce: unpaid carers
Then there are the millions of unpaid carers.
Carers UK estimates that 11.9 million people in the UK are currently providing unpaid care. In their State of Caring research, 57% of carers said they felt overwhelmed often or always, while 35% described their mental health as bad or very bad. Two thirds said they needed more support with their health and wellbeing, and 65% said they felt overwhelmed because they couldn't take time away from their caring role.
This tells us something important.
Caring itself can become a determinant of health.
So perhaps we need to stop thinking about carers simply as people who provide care.
We need to think about them as people who need care too.
What if we started with the whole person?
At Conscience Coaching and Consulting, this is where our work begins.
We don't see someone simply as a nurse, social worker, support worker, manager or unpaid carer.
We see a person.
A person with relationships, responsibilities, hopes, interests, strengths, worries and a life outside their caring role.
That is why we believe solution-focused coaching outdoors, wellbeing walks, and wellbeing retreats can be such a valuable complementary approach.
Not therapy.
Not a replacement for clinical support.
Not another wellbeing tick-box.
But an opportunity to step away from the demands of caring and ask:
- How are you?
- What matters to you?
- What would you like to be different?
- What is already helping?
- When do you feel most like yourself?
And perhaps most importantly:
- What do you need?
This isn't about putting responsibility back onto carers
We cannot tell exhausted carers to "be more resilient" while leaving the conditions that are exhausting them unchanged.
A wellbeing walk won't solve staff shortages.
Coaching won't fix poor leadership.
A retreat won't replace respite care.
And nature cannot cure burnout.
This isn't an either/or.
We need better staffing levels, healthier cultures, compassionate leadership, decent working conditions, access to clinical and occupational health support, meaningful respite for unpaid carers – and opportunities for people to reconnect with themselves.
Wellbeing needs to be both individual and systemic.
Caring for carers is everyone's responsibility
If we genuinely value care, then we have to value the people who provide it.
That means NHS organisations need to think beyond sickness management.
Care providers need to think beyond recruitment and retention.
Employers need to recognise the impact of caring responsibilities on their workforce.
Communities need to recognise and support unpaid carers.
And all of us need to challenge the idea that people who care for others should simply keep going.
We need to care for our carers before they reach breaking point.
At Conscience Coaching and Consulting, our wellbeing walks, solution-focused outdoor coaching and wellbeing retreats are one small but important part of that wider response.
They offer a different kind of space.
A non-clinical, person-centred space.
A space where someone doesn't have to be a carer for a while.
They can simply be themselves.
So, what can we do?
If you are an NHS organisation, care provider, charity, local authority or organisation supporting people who care for others, ask yourself:
- What are we doing to care for the people who care?
And then ask:
- Could we do something different?
- Could we create protected time for people to step away?
- Could we offer wellbeing walks?
- Could we provide outdoor coaching?
- Could we create retreats for paid and unpaid carers?
- Could we make wellbeing less about another programme and more about seeing the person?
At Conscience Coaching and Consulting, we believe the answer starts with a simple principle:
- If we want people to keep caring for others, we have to care for them too.
Let's take the conversation outside.
Let's walk. Let's talk. Let's listen. Let's care for our carers.
Because caring for carers isn't an optional extra.
It is part of caring.