Informal care is unpaid help provided by a family member, friend, neighbour or another person with a personal connection to someone who needs support. That person may require assistance because of an illness, disability, mental health condition, addiction, injury, frailty or age-related needs.
The care may involve occasional tasks, such as collecting prescriptions, or substantial daily responsibilities, including personal care and medication support. The person providing it is commonly called an informal carer, unpaid carer, family caregiver or care partner.
Many people perform this role without describing themselves as carers. They may simply see themselves as a spouse helping a partner, an adult child supporting a parent or a friend checking on someone regularly. Recognising the role matters because informal carers may be able to access assessments, training, respite and other forms of support.
What Is Informal Care in Health and Social Care?
In health and social care, informal care means practical, personal or emotional assistance delivered outside a paid professional arrangement. It is normally based on an existing personal relationship rather than an employment contract.
An informal carer might help someone remain safe and independent at home, follow a treatment plan or manage everyday activities. The arrangement may be temporary, such as supporting someone while they recover from surgery, or continue for years if the person has a long-term condition.
Informal care is not limited to older people. It can support:
- A child with a physical or learning disability
- An adult recovering from a serious injury
- A person living with dementia
- Someone with a long-term physical condition
- A person experiencing mental ill health
- Someone affected by alcohol or drug dependence
- An individual receiving palliative or end-of-life care
The exact terminology differs by country. “Unpaid carer” is widely used in the UK, while “family caregiver” or “informal caregiver” is more common in the US. The essential meaning is similar: care is provided through a personal relationship rather than as paid employment.
What Is an Informal Carer?
An informal carer is someone who regularly supports a relative, partner, friend or neighbour without being employed as that person’s professional care worker.
An informal carer does not need to:
- Live with the person receiving care
- Provide care every day
- Be related to the person
- Hold a healthcare qualification
- Receive an official carer designation
- Be the only person providing support
The person may combine caring with employment, education, parenting or other responsibilities. Children and teenagers can also be young carers when they provide significant help to a family member with an illness, disability, mental health condition or substance-use problem.
An informal carer may sometimes receive a government benefit, expense reimbursement or small allowance. This does not automatically turn the relationship into professional care. The key distinction is that the individual is not employed under a commercial or professional care arrangement.
Examples of Informal Care
Informal care can range from small but essential tasks to intensive personal assistance. Its form depends on the person’s condition, abilities, preferences and living arrangements.
Personal care
A carer may help with:
- Bathing or showering
- Dressing and changing clothes
- Using the toilet
- Eating and drinking
- Getting into or out of bed
- Moving safely around the home
Personal care should preserve the person’s dignity, privacy and independence wherever possible.
Household and practical support
Examples include:
- Preparing meals
- Buying groceries
- Cleaning the home
- Doing laundry
- Collecting prescriptions
- Arranging transport
- Accompanying someone to appointments
- Helping with letters, forms or phone calls
A neighbour who regularly shops for someone unable to leave home may therefore be providing informal support, even if they do not perform personal care.
Health-related assistance
Some informal carers help with:
- Reminding the person to take prescribed medicines
- Organising appointments
- Recording symptoms
- Supporting mobility exercises recommended by a professional
- Communicating concerns to a healthcare team
- Following an agreed care or discharge plan
Complex medical tasks require appropriate instruction. An informal carer should not be expected to perform a procedure they have not been trained to carry out safely.
Emotional and social support
Care is not always physical. An informal carer may provide:
- Companionship
- Reassurance during periods of distress
- Regular telephone or in-person check-ins
- Encouragement to maintain social contact
- Support with routines and decision-making
- Help communicating needs or preferences
Emotional support can be particularly important for someone experiencing loneliness, bereavement, dementia or mental ill health.
Administrative and financial help
An informal carer might assist with:
- Paying bills
- Managing household paperwork
- Completing benefit applications
- Booking services
- Organising insurance or healthcare documents
- Monitoring important deadlines
Legal authority may be necessary for certain decisions or transactions. Being someone’s carer does not automatically give a person the right to control bank accounts, access confidential records or make medical decisions.
Types of Informal Support
Informal support is a broader term covering non-professional help offered through personal and community relationships. It can include care, but not every act of informal support amounts to an ongoing caring role.
Common types include:
| Type of support | Example |
|---|---|
| Practical | Cooking meals or doing household chores |
| Personal | Helping someone dress or wash |
| Emotional | Listening, reassuring and offering companionship |
| Social | Helping someone attend activities or stay connected |
| Mobility | Assisting with walking or providing transport |
| Health-related | Organising medicines or attending appointments |
| Administrative | Completing forms or arranging services |
| Supervisory | Checking that someone is safe at home |
A friend giving someone a lift to one medical appointment is providing informal support. If that friend coordinates appointments, collects medicines and checks on the person every day, the relationship may reasonably be described as informal care.
Informal Care vs Formal Care
Formal care is provided through an organised service or professional working arrangement. It may be delivered by nurses, healthcare assistants, home-care workers, social workers, therapists or residential care staff.
| Informal care | Formal care |
|---|---|
| Usually provided by relatives, friends or neighbours | Provided by employed or contracted workers |
| Generally unpaid | Normally paid through private or public funding |
| Based on a personal relationship | Based on a professional role |
| May not require formal qualifications | Training, registration or qualifications may be required |
| Often flexible and woven into daily life | Usually follows agreed duties, schedules and standards |
| Boundaries may develop informally | Responsibilities and accountability are formally defined |
The two forms of care can work together. For example, a home-care worker may visit each morning to provide personal care, while a relative prepares evening meals, manages appointments and provides companionship.
Formal services do not necessarily replace family support. Equally, the availability of relatives should not be treated as a reason to deny someone an appropriate professional assessment.
What Is the Role of Informal Care?
The role of informal care is to help a person meet everyday needs, maintain relationships and live as independently as their circumstances allow.
An informal carer may notice subtle changes that professionals cannot easily observe during short appointments. They may understand the person’s routines, communication preferences, cultural background and usual behaviour. This knowledge can help healthcare and social-care professionals develop more suitable support plans.
However, informal carers are not substitutes for every professional service. A person’s needs may exceed what relatives or friends can safely provide. Professional input may be necessary when:
- Care requires clinical knowledge or specialist equipment
- The person’s condition is deteriorating
- Moving or lifting creates a risk of injury
- Medication errors are occurring
- Behaviour presents a danger to the person or others
- The carer is physically or emotionally exhausted
- The person cannot be left alone safely
- Safeguarding concerns arise
A care arrangement works better when the needs, abilities and limits of both people are considered.
Informal Relationships in Health and Social Care
An informal relationship in health and social care is a personal relationship that exists outside a professional service arrangement. Examples include relationships with relatives, friends, neighbours, peer-support members and community contacts.
These relationships can provide trust, familiarity and continuity. Professional relationships, however, operate under defined responsibilities, confidentiality requirements, organisational policies and codes of conduct.
“Informal communication” is slightly different. It generally refers to everyday, less structured conversations, such as a quick discussion between a relative and a care worker. Although the style may be informal, confidential information must still be handled properly.
Healthcare professionals cannot always disclose a patient’s private information to a carer without consent or another lawful basis. A carer can nevertheless share concerns with professionals, even when those professionals cannot provide confidential details in return.
Rights, Choice and Boundaries
Receiving care does not remove a person’s right to dignity, privacy and involvement in decisions. Where the person has decision-making capacity, their wishes should guide how support is provided.
Healthy boundaries can include:
- Agreeing which tasks the carer can realistically perform
- Asking permission before discussing private information
- Encouraging the person to do what they can independently
- Keeping emergency contacts and care instructions accessible
- Involving professionals when a task becomes unsafe
- Reviewing the arrangement as needs change
- Planning regular breaks for the carer
Informal care can become difficult when expectations are never discussed. A written care plan, even a simple one, can clarify medicines, appointments, emergency procedures and who is responsible for each task.
How to Recognise That You Are a Carer
You may be an informal carer if someone regularly depends on you for tasks they would struggle to complete alone. Consider whether you:
- Plan your day around another person’s needs
- Manage their medicines, appointments or paperwork
- Help them wash, dress, eat or move
- Monitor their health or safety
- Provide regular emotional support during distress
- Feel unable to leave them without arranging alternative help
- Have reduced work, study or social activities because of caring
- Worry about what would happen if you were unavailable
There is no application process required to “become” an informal carer. The role develops through the support you provide. Registering as a carer with a doctor, local authority or support organisation may help you find suitable assistance, but the available process depends on where you live.
Support Available to Informal Carers
Caring can be meaningful, but it may also affect sleep, physical health, relationships, employment and finances. Asking for help is part of maintaining a safe arrangement, not evidence that the carer has failed.
Support in the UK
In England, an adult who appears to have a need for support may request a carer’s assessment from their local council. The assessment considers how caring affects their wellbeing and whether they are eligible for assistance. Support might include information, training, equipment, help with specific responsibilities or opportunities to take a break.
Rules and services vary across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, so carers should check the relevant national and local guidance.
Useful first contacts include:
- The local council or health and social care authority
- The cared-for person’s GP practice
- An NHS healthcare professional involved in the person’s care
- A local carers’ organisation
- School or local young-carer services for someone under 18
Support in the US
In the US, assistance varies by state, programme, insurance coverage and the care recipient’s circumstances. Possible starting points include:
- The person’s healthcare team
- A hospital social worker or care coordinator
- A local Area Agency on Aging
- A state or community caregiver-support programme
- Medicaid or veterans’ services, where applicable
- Condition-specific charities and support organisations
Some services provide training, support groups, respite or help navigating local resources. Eligibility and funding arrangements should be checked directly with the relevant agency.
When Urgent or Professional Help Is Needed
Informal support should not be used to manage a crisis that requires emergency or specialist intervention.
Seek urgent help if the person has symptoms of a medical emergency, is in immediate danger, cannot be kept safe or may harm themselves or someone else. Contact the emergency service for your location: 999 in the UK or 911 in the US.
Professional advice is also needed when the carer cannot safely perform essential tasks, the person’s needs have changed significantly or the caring situation is damaging the carer’s health. A healthcare or social-care assessment can identify safer alternatives.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is informal care always unpaid?
Informal care is generally understood to be unpaid care provided through a personal relationship. A carer may receive expenses, benefits or limited financial assistance without becoming an employed professional carer.
Can a friend be an informal carer?
Yes. An informal carer can be a friend, partner, relative, neighbour or another person who regularly provides unpaid support. They do not have to be related to or live with the person receiving care.
Is childcare considered informal care?
Ordinary parenting or routine childcare is not usually described as informal care. A parent or relative may be recognised as a carer when they provide additional support because a child has an illness, disability or other substantial care need.
Do informal carers need qualifications?
No general qualification is required to support a relative or friend. Training may be necessary for specific tasks, such as safe lifting, operating equipment or providing complex health-related care.
Can informal and formal support be used together?
Yes. Informal carers and professional services often provide different parts of a person’s support. Clear communication and agreed responsibilities help prevent omissions, duplication and unsafe expectations.
Is an informal carer allowed to make medical decisions?
Not automatically. A carer may help communicate the person’s wishes, but legal authority depends on consent, decision-making capacity and the law in the relevant country or state. Formal documents or legal appointments may be required.
Conclusion
Informal care is unpaid practical, personal or emotional help given through a family, friendship or community relationship. It can make daily life safer and help someone remain independent, but it should not depend on one person carrying unlimited responsibility.
If someone regularly relies on your help, recognising yourself as an informal carer is a useful first step. It allows you to discuss boundaries, request an assessment, seek training and arrange support before the role becomes unmanageable.