The Guardian view on unpaid care: time to heed Kate and Derek’s story | Editorial

Kate Garraway’s documentaries about caring for her late husband, Derek Draper, have drawn huge publicity and millions of viewers.

That is partly testimony to the celebrity of the couple – a TV presenter and a New Labour politico – but it is mostly due to the power of their story.

Covid ravaged every organ in Mr Draper’s body so that, in the programme aired this week, viewers saw this vibrant, sharp-witted man confined to a bed, struggling to walk or to form sentences.

Even amid this intimate suffering, Ms Garraway knows there are millions of other households in similar situations – except without her profile, access to expertise or high salary.

News bulletins will regularly feature stories on the desperate erosion of the NHS and the crisis in social care – yet they rarely look into the lives of wives, husbands, sons and daughters who step in where the state has failed.

It may be easier for an accountant, say, to negotiate more flexibility at work so that they can care for a parent; but companies that provide precarious contracts and low pay also need to step up to the mark.