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EMBARGO: 17 OCTOBER 2024
CAREFREE HQ, LONDON
London - 17 October, 2024: 10,000 much-needed breaks have now been distributed to unpaid carers nationwide by tech charity, Carefree, thanks to growing support from the hospitality industry for its cause.
For the hotel groups involved, it marks a shift in Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) strategy to incorporate a more robust focus on their societal impact.
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 has 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:
“The reason we founded Carefree we because we saw that it was unsustainable for society to depend on unpaid carers to provide 80% of home care. We knew from personal experience the critical need for respite and indeed 88% of our users say they couldn’t have taken a break without the charity.
But it was hard at first for our pilot partners to see the bigger picture. The pandemic proved that every business was impacted by what’s happening in the care economy. They now know that what we do now to build a better care future will benefit us all.”
The award-winning tech charity has developed a full-suite ESG solution to enable hotels to easily release their vacant 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. It is now working with 13 hotel groups, covering brands such as Holiday Inn Express, Hilton, Residence Inn by Marriott and Crowne Plaza. All of them are gifting 1 to2 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 everyday 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.”
To date, 28,000 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 four 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 daily. 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, almost 8 out 10 (78%) hadn’t had a break in a year; for 4 out of 10 (38%) it’s been more than three years. Almost all (95%) report improved wellbeing from their break 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 or interviews with case studies, Charity CEO or hotel group, contact the team at Carefree.
Charlotte Newman I CEO I charlotte@carefreespace.org I https://carefreespace.org/
For media:
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
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