This was the first report of the Commission on the Role of Housing in the Future of Care and Support. Co-produced with people with lived experience and senior figures in the health, social care and housing sectors, it provides a short overview of the key issues facing the sector, an initial vision for the future and some preliminary ideas which the Commission believed merited further exploration. It additionally posed some questions which guided the Commission’s remaining work, culminating in the final report published in November 2021 ‘A place we can call home: A vision and a roadmap for providing more options for housing with care and support for older people‘.
The Commission on the Role of Housing in the Future of Care and Support was launched in October 2020 and presents a blueprint for the future to enable greater choice and availability of housing and support for older people who may find it difficult to live independently at home, or who choose to live somewhere which provides more support options. The Commission is funded by the Dunhill Medical Trust and Chaired by Rt Hon Paul Burstow, Sir David Pearson CBE and Professor Julienne Meyer CBE; with Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) providing the secretariat.
Foreword
Every decision about care, is a decision about housing
, so wrote the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) in its paper Nine statements to help shape adult social care reform (ADASS, 2020b).
And yet we know that for many people there is a lack of choice and availability of supportive settings to meet people’s individual needs.
If we are to successfully improve people’s experiences and outcomes in later life, we need to think again about how we find ways to improve the quality, quantity and choices of future generations needing housing with care and support.
There are plenty of chinks of light and optimism. One such vision of what is possible is presented by Social Care Future, a coalition of people who want to bring about positive change in social care and we must reflect and harness this commitment in our work.
We all want to live in the place we call home with the people and things that we love, in communities where we look out for one another, doing the things that matter to us.
Despite the challenges we face, we want to be part of a positive future for social care. This is why the three of us were excited to be asked to chair a new Commission on the Role of Housing in the Future of Care and Support, funded by Dunhill Medical Trust. The Commission will, by drawing on previous work and through extensive engagement with the sector and the evidence, set out a new vision and roadmap for how we fund, commission, plan and deliver the change that is needed.
We’re delighted to be working with an esteemed and experienced group of commissioners drawn from across the sector, as well as people with lived experience, to develop proposals and recommendations. We hope these will be useful to government as it formulates its long-term plan for social care and help people in practice draw up their own local plans.
We believe that there are real opportunities to build on the many excellent examples of innovative practice. These will help us to chart a course which sets out how we can make the very best of provision available to all. Let us grasp this chance to truly make a difference.
This first report from the Commission sets out the scope of our work and our intentions. It provides an overview of some of the critical issues that need to be considered and describes the principles on which future provision should be based. It is meant to pose the judicious questions on which we need to work during the coming months and spark discussion. Your input is warmly welcomed: please do send us your thoughts, creative ideas and examples of the great practice we know are out there. We look forward to hearing from you.
Rt Hon Paul Burstow, Sir David Pearson CBE, Julienne Meyer CBE