The Commission on the Role of Housing in the Future of Care and Support was funded by the Dunhill Medical Trust and led by SCIE. Established in October 2020, it is composed of a group of leaders of care and support organisations, academics, experts and practitioners related to housing with care and support and co-chaired by the Rt Hon Paul Burstow, Professor Julienne Meyer CBE and Sir David Pearson CBE. The Commission was tasked with developing a vision and roadmap for providing more options for housing with care and support.
The Commission examined the range of housing types that provide access to care and support for older adults who no longer live in mainstream or general housing. This includes the following types: care homes (also referred to residential homes and nursing homes), housing with care (an umbrella term for extra care, retirement villages, assisted living), housing with support (an umbrella term for retirement flats, sheltered housing), Shared Lives, and forms of alternative and community-led housing such as co-housing schemes.
Roadmap
The Commission published its final report A place we can call home: A vision and a roadmap for providing more options for housing with care and support for older people in November 2021. The report followed on from an earlier discussion paper published in February 2021 and concludes that an overhaul is needed on how housing with care and support is planned, commissioned, designed and delivered.
o decision about care and support should be made without considering where people live. This report is a wake-up call. It makes a compelling case for investing in innovative housing with care and raising public awareness of their later-life housing options. Better housing can help people to live in places that matter to them as they age, to remain independent as long as possible and stay connected with their family, friends and communities.
Rt Hon Paul Burstow
A test of any country is the degree to which it supports and enables those who need care and support to stay safe and to lead the best lives they can. Excellent housing with care – including care homes, supported living, extra care and the many other models – is at the heart of supporting people to live the best lives they can. I am excited to be asked to co-chair this important commission. I hope that the work we do can inform future policy and practice for years to come.
David Pearson CBE
I said last year that this Commission mustn’t just be a talking shop. I’m delighted that this report makes some tangible recommendations for a 10-year strategy. The seven principles of excellence, identified in the report, are key to delivering our shared vision with Social Care Future, where we all want to live in a place we call home with the people and things we love, in communities where we look out for one another, doing the things that matter most.
Professor Julienne Meyer CBE
Governance
As well as the three Co-Chairs, the panel of Commissioners was made up of:
- Jane Ashcroft CBE, Chief Executive, Anchor
- Dr José-Luis Fernández, Director Care Policy and Evaluation Centre, London School of Economics
- Professor Martin Green OBE, Chief Executive, Care England
- Edel Harris OBE, Chief Executive, Mencap
- Richard Jones CBE, Chair of Board for Shared Lives Plus
- Julie Ogley, Immediate Past President, Association of Directors Adult Social Services and Director of Social Care, Health and Housing, Central Bedfordshire Council
- Professor Alison Petch, Chair, The Dunhill Medical Trust
- Jeremy Porteus, Chief Executive, Housing LIN
- Vic Rayner OBE, Executive Director, National Care Forum
- Dr Ossie Stuart, Trustee, Social Care Institute for Excellence
- Andrea Sutcliffe CBE, Chief Executive, Nursing and Midwifery Council
- Dr Jane Townson, Chief Executive Officer, Homecare Association
- Michael Voges, Executive Director, Association of Retirement Community Operators
- Emma Williams, Relatives and Residents Association
The Commissioners were supported by SCIE’s Co-Production Collective and a Stakeholder Reference Group.
Evidence
SCIE undertook six strands of evidence to inform the Commission, the details of which can be found in appendix 2 of the report:
- An online public perception survey of 1,543 people conducted via YouGov
- A mapping exercise of the housing with care and support sector
- A cost-benefit tool designed to enable local authority commissioners to explore the financial costs and benefits of developing extra care, residential care, Shared Lives and sheltered housing. The tool was developed jointly by SCIE and Private Public Limited
- A Directory of Promising Practice containing 42 examples and eight case studies
- Appreciative Inquiry consisting of online workshops and a series of one-to-one conversations. Three workshops were with people with lived experience and carers of people with lived experience and one with providers, including managers and other senior staff. In total, 15 people with lived experience and carers, and nine providers and social workers took part
- A scoping review of the literature
The Dunhill Medical Trust is an independently endowed charitable foundation specialising in supporting researchers and community organisations to understand the mechanisms of ageing and improve the health and social care of older people.