Last Thursday, ITV showed a documentary on unpaid carers in the UK. Carer social media was alight with comments encouraging their followers to watch it. I have a confession to make, dear reader, I didn’t watch it. I watched Dragon’s Den instead. I wanted a bit of entertainment grandma and I could watch together and, frankly, I couldn’t cope with the heartbreak I knew would be on display.

I don’t think I was alone in that choice. I’m willing to bet that a lot more people watched Dragon’s Den or anything else rather than a 30-minute documentary after Emmerdale that evening. I’m sure a lot of unpaid carers watched it though, which is great but entirely misses the target audience for this kind of content. We need literally everyone apart from unpaid carers to watch it.

Unpaid carers know the hardships faced, we know what it is like, and apart from perhaps relating to the stories on display, there isn’t much we can do about our situation. That’s why we need the rest of the population to care and help us bring this issue to the forefront.

I watched the show online last weekend. It said all the right things and made all the right points. The government’s and local authorities’ deafening silence, inaction and incompetence were highlighted and the human stories showcased were shocking. I felt helpless and wanted to give everyone a hug. But, watching as a communications professional, I was annoyed. Once at the very beginning, when the journalist introduced the piece saying that unpaid carers ‘voluntarily’ care for others. That is not true. We have no choice, and had I been the communications director at Carers UK, I would have asked for that bit to be re-recorded.

My main annoyance however was with the format. This type of show will not get cut through. Non-carers will not want to watch it. They will either think this will never apply to them or it is so uncomfortable to think about and they’d rather watch investors making entrepreneur’s dreams come true. Our struggles need to be showcased in a way that non-carers can relate to. They need to understand how it feels and what it is truly like to be in our situation, in a way that is not intimidating or will want to make them bury their heads in the sand. We want non-carers to talk about it as a known issue that they can relate to.

What kind of content gets cut-through in our society?

I’d say it either has to be shocking, controversial, or very funny. It also has to be relatable and entertaining. That’s where the tension lies: how can you make a topic that is inexplicable-until-you-experience-it relatable? And caring isn’t hugely entertaining either – you basically live the same say on repeat unless there is an emergency of some kind.

I have two vague ideas that I think could work:

• A comedy drama about an unpaid carer and the person they care for that is both funny and poignant. The Brits make such great TV, I’m sure it could be a success and get the general public engaged. The featured actors could also help raise awareness and get a national conversation going. If any producer is reading this, I have *a lot* of material thanks to grandma who is unintentionally very entertaining.
• A reality show that puts influencers in the shoes of unpaid carer for a period of time. Either shadowing real-life carers if feasible or being made to live like we have to, with the restrictions we face and the constant demands made of us. That format would help the general public understand what we face. I would ask influential and politically-adjacent people to take part like the dynamic podcasting duo Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart, or marketing superstar Steven Bartlett, and other respected celebs- nobody from Love Island or the Apprentice. They could also use their influence to get people talking about this issue.

I’m not trying to diminish this documentary or the brave people who shared their story. It makes sense for documentaries like these to exist, but with an issue that is so difficult to explain and get people to engage with, a different approach is needed. Tales of unpaid carers need to be told in a different and persistent way.

This blog is not my (admittedly odd) cover letter to Carers UK for a job in their communications department, although I’d be very happy to get involved with them or any other charity for future campaigns.

And perhaps, with a bit of persuading, we could get the attention of producer extraordinaire, Richard Osman, to help us get unpaid carers on TV in a meaningful way.

P.S: You can watch the documentary on the following link. Let me know what you think: https://www.itv.com/watch/tonight/1_2803/1a2803a9393

Or you can read about it here: https://www.itv.com/news/2024-02-01/lindsey-burrow-who-cares-for-our-carers