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EMBARGO: 17 OCTOBER 2024
CAREFREE HQ, LONDON
10,000 breaks have now been distributed to unpaid carers nationwide by tech charity, Carefree, thanks to a swelling of support from the hospitality industry for its cause.
For the hotel groups involved, it marks a shift in ESG strategy to incorporate a heavier social focus into their plans to reach net zero.
Unpaid carers contribute £162 bn of social care value every year, equivalent to the entire NHS budget (Carers UK). Yet 68% are not able to access a break when they need one according to Carers Trust.
Although there is a clear market opportunity to leverage the hotel industry’s natural excess capacity to meet this need, it’s taken time for the concept of generating social value from under-utilised assets to take hold.
Carefree co-founder and Chair of Trustees, Charlie Ricketts, said:
“When we founded Carefree we saw how our society’s dependence on unpaid carers to provide 80% of home care was unsustainable without an intervention that worked beyond the usual tracks but it was hard for our pilot partners to see the bigger picture. The pandemic proved that every business is impacted by what’s happening in the care economy, which has made it much easier for us to show that what we do now to build a better care future will benefit us all.”
To this end, the tech charity has developed a full-suite ESG solution to enable hotels to easily release their unbooked rooms to verified unpaid carers, track their impact and refer carers from within their workforce for a break so they can also benefit from this added wellbeing support.
New partnerships with Atlas Hotels and Greene King have fuelled its growth in 2024 and it is now working with 13 hotel groups, covering brands such as Holiday Inn Express, Hilton, Residence Inn by Marriott and Crowne Plaza - who are all gifting 1-2 night breaks with breakfast included on a rolling basis across their property portfolios.
On the balance of social and economic impact that the initiative is seeking to create, Carefree CEO, Charlotte Newman said:
“Few companies realise that 1 in 7 of their employees will be an unpaid carer. This is an issue that affects their staff and customers alike and hotels can genuinely do something about it without changing anything about their every day business. If we don’t prove to our partners that building a stronger society and better businesses can go hand-in-hand, we won’t succeed in scaling this initiative to the measure of people that need it.
So far 27,000 full-time, unpaid carers have signed up to Carefree, but extrapolating from the 2021 census, the charity estimates that there could be as many as 4 million people providing over 30 hours of unpaid care work per week without access to respite.
David Orr, CEO of Resident Hotels and Sleeperz Group said:
From personal experience, there is the utmost need to support carers, who make an incredible and generous personal sacrifice. For us at Resident Hotels Ltd. and the Sleeperz Group, this is a small contribution to help, in comparison to what all carers commit to on a daily basis. Collaborating with Carefree is a unique opportunity for us and the wider hotel sector, to support these heroes with respite away from home.
Of the 10,000 carers who have taken a break with Carefree, 88% say they couldn’t have taken a break without the charity. 95% report improved wellbeing and 86% are better able to cope with their caring role.
The charity aims to deliver 100,000 breaks in the next 5 years and is launching its first mainstream media campaign at the end of October to raise awareness of the importance of breaks for carers and drive new hotel partnerships.
For more information, please get in touch with the team at Carefree.
Charlotte Newman I CEO I charlotte@carefreespace.org I https://carefreespace.org/
To join our campaign launch event, please RSVP at: https://caref.re/3zEMDAn
Carer case studies and hotel group spokespeople will be available upon request.
ABOUT CAREFREE
Carefree transforms vacant rooms into vital breaks for unpaid carers. The offer is available to full-time unpaid carers (aged over 18, providing 30+ hours of care per week), who can book an annual break for themselves and a companion of 1-2 nights with breakfast included via the Carefree platform for a token admin fee of £33 towards the charity’s operating costs.
Each break has an average commercial rate card value of £275, meaning that the charity has mobilised £2.75m of gifted accommodation for the social care sector to date.
The charity has had a unique journey since inception in 2017, collaborating with 60 local carer support organisations to refer carers, multiple tech and no-code software companies to provide different parts of Carefree’s online platform, as well as the hotel groups who donate a portion of their excess capacity.
It’s been largely funded by The City Bridge Foundation, The National Lottery Fund, The Postcode Innovation Trust and The Swire Charitable Trusts and its small team has won multiple awards for its digital and social innovation in both the travel and third sectors.
PARTICIPATING HOTEL GROUPS
4C Group I Atlas Hotels I Axiom Hospitality I Bespoke Hotels I Cycas Hospitality I Greene King I Imperial Hotels London I Nobu Hotel Shoreditch I The Q Hotels Collection I Rockery Hall Hotel & Spa I Sleeperz Hotels I St Giles Hotels I Village Hotels
FURTHER INFORMATION
Carefree one pager: https://caref.re/4gNiFKY
Latest Carefree Impact Report: https://caref.re/3xYzj8p
Press Kit for Brand Assets/ Images / Team Bios: https://newsroom.carefreespace.org/press-kit