Elizabeth Hanson

PhD, Professor, Research Director

Affiliation(s)
Linnaeus University, Dept., Health and Caring Sciences, Kalmar; Swedish Family Care Competence Centre (Nationellt kompetenscentrum anhöriga-Nka)

Topic for the talk
Elizabeth will discuss the role of informal (family) carers within person-centered care and the importance of health and social care professionals recognising carers’ expertise and providing timely and effective support to help them in their caring situation. Elizabeth’s presentation will be framed within the work of Eurocarers and the opportunities afforded by the recent European Care Strategy.

Bio
Elizabeth leads the ‘Informal Carers, Care and Caring’ research group at Linnaeus University which acts as the research arm of the Swedish Family Care Competence Centre (Nka). Nka is a national centre of excellence on informal (family) care funded by the Swedish Ministry of Health and Social Affairs. Elizabeth acts as expert advisor to the National Board of Health and Welfare Sweden on carers issues. She has a long- standing interest in informal care and over the last twenty-five years Elizabeth has led a variety of national and international projects in partnership with informal carers, patients/service users, health and social care practitioners, decision makers, policy makers and NGOs. The goal being to strengthen the knowledge base and stimulate evidence-based policies and practices for and with carers across the life course. Elizabeth is a board member and prior president of Eurocarers, the European association working for informal carers. She established the Eurocarers Research Working Group whose aim is to feed into the definition of evidence-based policy making on the role and added value of informal carers.