Madam,

We should congratulate and express our gratitude to Ysgol Penglais and the county council staff for the support they are providing for young carers at the school. Similarly we must appreciate the efforts of the charities that organise respite breaks, activities, peer support groups and information services, providing much-needed help without which being a young carer could be a very lonely situation indeed; some young carers still report feeling isolated.

On 29 March last year Hywel Dda University Health Board advised me that the 2011 Census (still relied upon as the most accurate source available) suggested that there were 3,436 young carers (defined as 5-17 year olds) in west Wales.

By 4 December the board was able to state that only around 400 young carers had been identified and therefore able to receive support. Those figures make it quite clear that there are potentially large numbers not receiving the support they may need . The Estyn report also points to this deficiency, therefore initiatives such as that at Ysgol Penglas are to be welcomed.

Caring is known to be a stressful, exhausting, health and well-being damaging role for carers of any age and for many children educational and social opportunities are reduced. The reality is that in any other context putting children (some as young as five years old) to work, in the knowledge that they stand a much greater chance of experiencing health issues and deprivation of life opportunities than the general population, would be closely questioned and the child possibly safeguarded.

As a society we must ask ourselves should we continue to condone children being used as carers?

Should otherwise compassionate charities working for children support the practice without question, happily providing support to help these children cope under the far from satisfactory circumstances without seeking to have the practice that causes them damage removed.

There is a very bewildering relationship between the strategy proclaimed by the Minister for Health and Social Services (a role from which we might expect leadership in integrated thinking) which demands that we do all we can to prevent ill-heath, and the health boards and Social Services departments (for both of which the minister is ultimately responsible) who in the face of all the evidence that the role is more likely than not to cause health problems, deterioration of well-being, as well as obstacles to education and social development, continue to add new young child carers to the already inadequately supported informal carer workforce.

That is just not good enough, is it?

Yours etc, Bill Parker Llanfair Clydogau, Lampeter.

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