Informal Carers Day 2026: those who care at home need a break too

Informal Carers Day is marked in Portugal on 5 November. In 2026 it is a Thursday. Local councils, carers' associations, private social solidarity institutions (IPSS) and health services usually use the week for information sessions, gatherings and tributes.

What Informal Carers Day 2026 is

Unlike other health days, this one has no single organisation promoting it and no official theme for the year. We did not find the act that established it. The date appears under different names, such as World Day, National Day or simply Informal Carers Day, and is used by public bodies: the Regional Government of Madeira, for example, devoted an analysis note to it on 5 November 2024.

The legal framework is clearer than the date. The Informal Carer Statute was approved by Law no. 100/2019 of 6 September, and it governs the rights and duties of the carer and of the person cared for, as well as the support measures. It has been amended several times since.

The day matters because informal care sustains a huge share of the support given to dependent people, almost always out of sight.

Who cares at home

The informal carer is the woman looking after her husband after his stroke. The daughter who calls in at her mother's house before and after work. The neighbour who brings the meals. The eighty-year-old husband who bathes his wife with dementia, because she will only let him do it.

The figures help to show the profile. According to the 2019 National Health Survey by Statistics Portugal (INE), cited in the Madeira note, women make up more than 60% of informal carers in Portugal, and around 20% (19.9%) of women aged 65 or over also provide informal care. In other words, some of those who care already need some care themselves.

Carer fatigue rarely appears all at once. It shows up in small signs: no longer going to the doctor, sleeping badly, losing patience and feeling guilty about it, no longer seeing friends because there is no one to leave the person with.

Respite for the carer, in law and in practice

In the original version of the Statute, the law recognises the carer's right to periods of rest aimed at their wellbeing and emotional balance. And it sets out concrete ways of ensuring this: referring the person cared for to inpatient care in the National Network for Integrated Continuing Care, periodic and temporary placement in a residential facility or care home, and home support suited to the situation.

In practice, respite depends on there being a place available, on the person cared for agreeing to leave home, and on the carer being able to leave them without guilt. Those who work in institutions know this part well. The first week of a respite stay is often harder for the carer than for the person admitted.

The institutions that support carers

Day centres, home support services, care homes, continuing care units and palliative care teams do more for the carer than shows up in the reports. They give them free hours. They show them how to move the person without hurting themselves. They listen to them in the corridor. They call when something changes.

There is also a part that is talked about less: the visit. When the person moves into a care home or is admitted to hospital, the carer is still a carer, now a visiting one. And visits are not always easy. The conversation goes round in circles, the person with dementia may not recognise them that day, and many visits end up being spent tidying the drawer and asking whether they have eaten.

Some teams try to make the visit a shared moment rather than one more task: an activity the relative takes part in, a song they both know, a box of photographs, a walk in the garden. Those who care also have the right to be with the person without having to care for them.

We wrote about what technology does and does not do at home in informal carers: what technology does at home, and what it does not, and about home support in when care leaves the institution.

Where RVer comes in

RVer is not sold for home use. It is in institutions: care homes, hospitals, continuing care and palliative care. That is where it can touch the carer's life, quietly.

In a session run by the team, the person cared for can see a place the two of them knew together, the holiday beach, the village, the sanctuary, and the carer sits alongside talking about it. Those who cannot be there can follow the session by family call, seeing the same place. It is a moment in common. It does not replace the visit or the care.

For those caring at home, we have made free tools designed for everyday life, and explained why we made them in five free tools for carers. The framework for residential care homes and for palliative care is on the page for each setting.

In short

• Informal Carers Day is marked on 5 November, with no official theme and no single promoting organisation.
• The Informal Carer Statute, from 2019, provides for periods of rest and ways of ensuring them.
• Many carers are women, and some of them are over 65.
• Institutions already support carers in many ways, and the visit can be a shared moment.
• RVer is in institutions, not at home, and comes in only as a moment in common.

RVer's base product is a Class I medical device, registered in EUDAMED and with INFARMED (Portugal). Sessions are run by the institution's professionals and complement existing care.

Sources: Regional Government of Madeira, Regional Directorate for Integrated Public Policies and Longevity, Analysis Note no. 2/2024, World Informal Carers Day (in Portuguese), with data from the 2019 National Health Survey (INE); Law no. 100/2019 of 6 September, Diário da República (in Portuguese).