Opinion
How Covid-19 can spur us to improve later living
Extra care developer McCarthy & Stone supports over 20,000 homeowners in the UK. Here, chief operating officer Mike Lloyd reflects on Covid-19 and offers his thoughts on the future of older age living
As the UK’s leading developer and manager of later living communities, McCarthy & Stone has always had a keen eye on how older people are perceived and treated. The challenges this demographic faces when it comes to accommodation, care and health have been brought to the fore more than ever by Covid-19 and it is clear that the infrastructure currently available across the UK does not fully meet their needs. Though we do not know the full extent of the virus’s long-term impact, it is important that we reflect on the lessons we have learned during this period and re-commit ourselves to making real change to improve the lives of the elderly in this country.
Rapid action
With 441 developments across the country supporting over 20,000 homeowners typically aged in their 70s and 80s, from the outset of the pandemic we were closely monitoring international and local developments around the spread of Covid-19. We do not run care homes – our homeowners have their own front door and live independent lives, but we do provide them with back-up support and care if they need it, although with large shared
areas and services to enjoy. Yet the obstacles we have had to navigate in 2020 are shared with the care home sector and I know people working across both sides of the older age living coin have had a tough year. Moving forward we will all learn from this period and I am sharing our McCarthy & Stone story here in the hope it will galvanise us all into continued action to create a better future for older people. Our absolute priority throughout this pandemic has been the health and wellbeing of our homeowners and employees, and this commitment has been at the very centre of our response. Our teams have worked hard to adapt our operations and draw on different resources to keep people safe.
We must prioritise housing that can meet the diverse needs of older communities and ensure specialist housing is available across the affordability spectrum
January 2021 •
www.thecarehomeenvironment.com
And despite the challenges this pandemic has posed, our communities have proved to be a safe haven for our homeowners.
On our developments the Covid-19 infection rates have thankfully been significantly less than that of the wider population. Keeping infection rates down was the result of some incredible work from staff across the business and the considerable sacrifices our homeowners made in their daily lives to protect one another.
We knew that acting early would be essential to our efforts to mitigate the risk of Covid-19 across our communities. Even before the government announced a nationwide lockdown last March, we took the decision to restrict activities that were likely to bring and spread Covid-19 and put practices in place to reduce risk too.
Some of these were as simple as asking only homeowners to use lifts and cleaning door handles regularly. We also put in systems to ferry deliveries from the entrance of developments to homeowners’ front doors.
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