Housing must play a bigger role in older people’s care
This article previews an area of debate for the RSN seminar on older people on 18 November 2015 in Cirencester (book at events@sparse.gov.uk)
For more than 20 years, as a director of social services and beyond, Martin Shreeve campaigned for extra-care housing as the model of provision that should replace residential care for older people. Almost two decades later, he is even more convinced that housing must play a bigger role in supporting older and disabled people to live independently. Why? For him it’s simple: “Housing is “their territory”. Supported housing operates in, and provides its services in, the territory over which service recipients have ownership or control. No other model of UK social care as currently configured – be it residential, nursing or domiciliary care – can deliver on that. We must start from where older people are: their aspirations, their potential to contribute, their desire to pursue a lifestyle should be what drives our thinking, planning and service delivery. This is the approach we take at The ExtraCare Charitable Trust – and not only does it work, but it saves money in the public purse. A three-year study by the Aston Research Centre for Healthy Ageing, published in June 2015, showed savings of 38% in NHS costs for our residents; a 46% reduction in routine or regular GP visits; a reduction in length of unplanned hospital stays from an eight- to 14-day average to one-to-two days; and a 26% reduction in higher-level social care costs to councils compared to costs in the wider community. In addition, when you consider the economies of scale that can be realised through people living in 200-home, well-designed retirement communities, with support services provided on-site, the case becomes, in my view, irrefutable”.