I had a letter from an old friend last week. Old as in long-standing; chronologically she is the same age as myself as we were at college together, and as we all should know ‘old’ in terms of years is a fairly meaningless term. But I digress. She had written to me because she knew I was interested in the ways we provide housing and support for older people and wanted to share her experience of looking for a care home for her mother-in-law.
Her mother-in-law had been supported in her own home with three visits a day from paid carers, regular visits from doctors and nurses, and friends and family staying with her three weeks out of four. It was becoming evident that this was not sufficient so they started looking for residential care (geographically we are in the East Midlands). In her own words, ‘We researched homes on the internet using CQC reports, we managed to dismiss ones without having to see them, even so there were more homes that were dirty or depressing, which we dismissed immediately or were where people were left to die. Eventually, we came up with two, one seemed far better than the other and we managed to get her into it.’
The chosen destination is a relatively new development, purpose built to include both a 62 bed care home providing residential, nursing and dementia care and 22 apartments for purchase or rent by older individuals or couples. For the latter, access to personal care and support is available as required. ‘What impressed us immediately was a beautiful airy space, with a coffee shop, which anybody could come to and sit with their relative and friend and how much people could personalise their rooms.’ She reported that her mother-in-law has become much more perky from eating three meals a day and has begun to walk a lot more as the activities which take place three or four times a week are held in the coffee area – ‘but it still has space for others to read the paper or just chat’.
She also described another resident who could probably live independently but had been persuaded to move in by her children. ‘She goes out on the mini-bus to town and to meet her friends, but loves being in the home as everyone knows she is cared for and not a burden.’ She concludes, ‘they don’t have a bar, but you can have drinks in your room’, perhaps a reference to an earlier conversation I half remember when I was no doubt advocating (to some surprise) such practice.
As I finished that sentence a new email popped up – the Housing LIN Viewpoint 23 on Building Mutual Support and Social Capital in Retirement Communities. Some will know I have been heavily influenced by my experience while at Dartington where they plan to create a community for older people on the site of the former radical school. In the course of planning for this initiative we were privileged to visit a number of inspiring developments across England including those of the Extracare Charitable Housing Trust, St Monicas in Bristol and the JRF schemes. The aspiration was (and is) for a community that builds on the best evidence, for example on design, on support of those with dementia, on community integration, and on equity.
I was disappointed to see relatively little detail on different models of housing for older people in the Strategy for Housing for Scotland’s Older People 2012-2021 released by the Scottish Government just before Christmas. There is reference in the section on Innovation to co-housing and retirement villages and to the Quarries (re)development by Dunedin Canmore HA in Edinburgh but very much a sense that such options are the exception rather than mainstream.
It is of course all about choice – many would regard living in a community with others as anathema. For some however there will come a point when the choice is more constrained and, as for my friend’s mother-in-law, we want options that generate such enthusiasm as to write an unsolicited testimonial such as I received last week.

An enjoyable piece (or whatever shape it is blogs come in)! But I’m left wondering about your comment on being able to
‘..conquer this particular ‘wicked issue’’
Can ‘wicked issues’ actually be conquered? Has trying to assume this not been part the problem? I don’t think Hillary and Tensing talked of ‘conquering’ Everest. But they left us with a route to the top, an understanding of its complexities, and a keen sense of what might be possible under a variety of prevailing conditions. Which is not bad at all. The weather they had on the way up was remarkably benign: not always the case, as they were the first to note…..
Thanks Karl. Happy to do so – let’s focus on the evidence for making it work!