Dominic Carter joins Carers Trust as its Director of Policy and Public Affairs

Carers Trust is delighted to announce the appointment of Dominic Carter as its Director of Policy and Public Affairs.

Dominic joins Carers Trust this week with over a decade’s worth of experience working in the voluntary sector for charities focused on health and social care, and refugee issues. In all these roles he has worked to identify and develop the most impactful pathways to influence decision-makers and deliver positive change.

Most recently he was Head of Policy, Advocacy and Research at Hospice UK, overseeing projects across the four UK nations to ensure palliative and end of life care sat firmly on governmental and public agendas. Key focus areas included the cost of living, equity of access for end of life care and modernising the sector's approach to data.

Prior to that Dominic has served in several roles at Alzheimer's Society and the Homecare Association, where he worked on various parts of the social care reform agenda, including the delivery  of the Prime Minister's Challenge on Dementia. This involved highlighting the experiences of those living with dementia and underpinning campaigns around the spiralling costs of dementia care with solid evidence. Dominic is also a Skills for Care Graduate, a Department for Health backed initiative to identify social care leaders of the future.

At Carers Trust Dominic will focus on five major policy themes: raising carer visibility and voice; carer poverty and work; young carers and young adult carers; carer health and wellbeing; and supporting local carer services. This will involve working with the UK Government and national and local decision makers in England, especially within health and social care. Another major priority of his role will be to coordinate the influencing activities of colleagues working in devolved settings in Scotland and Wales.

Looking forward to diving into his role at Carers Trust, Dominic said:

“I'm really excited to be joining Carers Trust and getting stuck in, particularly given the level of momentum behind the organisation and the vital cause of unpaid carers.

“With a key period ahead in the political calendar and a shifting relationship of decision-making power between national and local, I feel there is a huge amount I can achieve both at Carers Trust and with our Network Partners to ensure unpaid carers gain the recognition and support they deserve. 

“My desire to join Carers Trust comes from a mixture of personal experience in this area and the level of energy and passion I get from colleagues. I’m also keen to respond to the repeated experience in my career of finding unpaid carers to be both the key to a functioning support system for people, but also often the group last in line for help.”