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Why the government needs to set up a ‘housing with care’ taskforce
Despite the huge unmet need for specialised housing and care for older people, a range of barriers are blocking its development. A ‘housing with care’ taskforce should be set up to address this, writes Jane Ashcroft
The recent very public spats on coronavirus alert levels couldn’t provide a better illustration of the tensions between national policymaking and implementation on the ground.
In my last column for Inside Housing, I called on the government to combine its ‘build, build, build’ mantra with ‘care, care, care’ and put older people’s housing at the heart of the UK’s economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
The commitment of our colleagues supporting residents to keep safe and mitigate many of the consequences of lockdown, such as loneliness and isolation, has been outstanding – and was highlighted over the summer with the National Housing Federation’s Homes at the Heart campaign.
Yet, despite the huge unmet need for specialised housing and care for older people, a range of barriers, at national and local level, are blocking its development. That’s something that the Associated Retirement Community Operators (ARCO), the main body representing the retirement community sector in the UK, believes a ‘housing with care’ taskforce could address.
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Housing with care continues to play second fiddle to many other areas of health and care services. Responsibility for its delivery is fragmented across multiple government departments and policies and it is not defined or specifically regulated in the UK.
The creation of a housing with care taskforce could help to promote the huge contribution made to public services and the economy by the sector. Crucially, it could bring together the different areas of government responsible under one collaborative and cohesive approach.
The establishment of such a taskforce can also be the first step the government takes to support ARCO’s ‘Vision 2030’ agenda, which aims to provide 250,000 over-65s with the option of housing with care services by 2030 – up from 75,000 today.
This has enormous potential to help fix three of the biggest challenges the UK currently faces: post-pandemic economic recovery, social care reform and the housing crisis.
The potential benefits are clear:
- Improvements to older people’s mental and physical health services can reduce the cost of GP and nursing services along with hospital visits by 38%.
- Early intervention in lower-level needs will help to stave off the need for high-cost social care among older people.
- Potentially it could release 562,000 bedrooms into the market for all generations, by enabling those who want to downsize to do so.
- Meeting demand for housing with care could provide an extremely welcome boost to construction and job creation.
Anchor Hanover and Sonnet Impact’s report, The Social Value of an Anchor Hanover tenancy, shows that our services alone save public services, including the NHS, many thousands of pounds per year per resident.
According to ARCO, there currently are 444,000 retirement housing units and 456,000 care-home beds compared with just 70,000 housing with care units. This seriously limits the options available to people in later life.
Yet the Planning White Paper makes no mention of older people’s housing and the much-promised cross-party talks on reform have thus far failed to materialise.
By establishing a housing with care taskforce, the government can demonstrate a commitment to the aims of Vision 2030 and to delivering the fundamental reform social care desperately needs to build a more positive future for ageing.
Vision 2030 sets out a clear commitment from providers to deliver the homes older people and society as whole need. It has never been more important for providers and government to come together to deliver real change and rise to the challenges of our ageing population.
Jane Ashcroft CBE, chief executive of Anchor Hanover; vice-chair of ARCO; and vice-chair of the National Housing Federation
