Carers Week 9 – 15 June 2025: Caring About Equality

Carers Week is an annual event designed to highlight the challenges faced by carers and highlight the vital role they play in families and communities across the UK. The theme this year is ‘Caring About Equality’, and with that in mind this week serves as a great opportunity to remind businesses of the different ways carers are protected in the workplace.    

Discrimination by Association

Even if the employee isn’t disabled themselves, it’s important to remember that employees are protected from being discriminated against because of their association with a disabled person. 

For example, in the case of Graham v Gravity Supply Chain Solutions Ltd, the Employment Tribunal held that Mr Graham had been directly discriminated against because of his association with a disabled person. Cancer is specifically recognised in the Equality Act 2010 as being a disability, and Mr Graham was subjected to a series of detriments and was eventually dismissed by his employer because of his association with his wife who had stage 4 cancer.

Similarly, in the case of Follows v Nationwide Building Society, an Employment Tribunal found that Nationwide’s policy of requiring Senior Lending Managers to stop working from home was indirect associative discrimination. The policy of having to work from the office placed Mrs Fallows at a disadvantage due to her association with her mother’s disability. The Tribunal recognised that carers for disabled people will find it more difficult to work from the office than non-carers.  

Depending on the circumstances, sex discrimination issues can also arise because statistically women are more likely to be carers than men. 

Statutory Carer’s Leave

The right to take carer’s leave is a comparatively new one, having only come into force on 6 April 2024. From the first day of employment, it gives employees the right to take up to one week of unpaid carer’s leave every year. It can be taken in full days or half days, and does not need to be taken consecutively.

Some businesses have policies in place that pay employees during carer’s leave, or that provide a more generous leave entitlement than one week a year. However, for those that don’t, statutory carer’s leave is unpaid and there is nothing in the Government’s now infamous Employment Rights Bill that currently proposes to change this. 

The purpose of the leave must be to provide or arrange care for a dependent who needs long-term care. The definition of ‘dependent’ is very wide, and includes:

• the employee’s spouse, civil partner, child or parent;
• a person who lives in the same household as the employee (not including tenants, employees or lodgers); or
• a person who reasonably relies on the employee to provide or arrange care for them, such as an elderly neighbour. 

‘Long-term care’ means they have a disability for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010; they have an illness or injury that is likely to require care for more than three months; or they require care due to old age.

To request carer’s leave, employees must give notice of at least three days, or twice the number of days or part-days being requested, whichever is greater. An employer cannot flatly refuse a request to take carer’s leave, but there are circumstances where it can be postponed by up to a month.  

Flexible Working

Finally, carers commonly make flexible working requests in order to adjust their working patterns to allow them to manage their caring responsibilities.  

If you require any further assistance or support on the legal protection for carers in the workplace, please contact a member of the Employment Team.

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