Opinion
When it came to PPE we got together with our procurement team in our construction business to focus solely on sourcing it to allow our front line staff to continue to support and care for our most vulnerable homeowners. They did a great job getting PPE for us early when it was hard to come by.
Supporting mental and physical health
While early lockdowns, PPE and the dedicated commitment of our homeowners and our front line staff were essential to the success of our response against Covid-19, they were by no means a silver bullet to combating the problem. We knew that with lockdowns would come a number of other issues that are equally challenging for our homeowners, such as loneliness and isolation. Our response therefore had to be about much more than just reducing transmission, but about ensuring that we protect the mental health and wellbeing of homeowners as much as the physical. I do believe that through the passion and commitment of our staff and all our homeowners we have gone some way to doing this.
From the get-go, our staff were providing homeowners with information packs full of tips on how to stay healthy and happy at home. Our house and estate managers led the charge in organising a series of essential food and care packages alongside socially distanced activities including poetry competitions, exercise, educational workshops via Mirthy and singalongs. With our front line teams delivering so much additional support, we set up a country-wide buddy scheme that saw over 500 staff volunteers provide extra
help to our homeowners, ensuring they had essential food and medical supplies, as well as any other support they needed. Delivering this scheme allowed us to create an additional safety network for those that needed it most – and I was pleased to see so many of our people putting themselves forward to lend a hand.
In fact, we have been so impressed with the success of the buddies scheme that we are evolving it into a permanent volunteering service for our communities. Our Rockstars volunteer programme will connect even more helpers with voluntary tasks and roles, as part of our continued commitment to provide our homeowners with the necessary support during the second national lockdown and beyond.
Building long-term solutions Navigating Covid-19 has undoubtedly been an unprecedented challenge for
our business but I am proud of our actions to-date. However, as we emerge from the crisis, I believe the later living development sector has a critical role to play in ensuring that the welfare of the elderly remains a top priority. Our sector cannot simply hope for a return to ‘normal’. Instead, we must take steps now to begin working towards a ‘new normal’. We must prioritise housing that can meet the diverse needs of older communities and ensure specialist housing is available across the affordability spectrum.
As a starting point, many of us in the sector are keen to see older generations given more options for housing and support than the current family home and care home mix. Let me unpack this a little more here.
Driving development forward The pandemic brought many developers’ plans to a grinding halt and the continued financial impact on many businesses cannot be ignored. However, it is important that the sector begins to put the wheels back in motion when it comes to growing portfolios and developing a more future-fit and sustainable pipeline of housing for those in their later years. As it stands, there simply is not enough housing to meet current demand. WPI Economics’ Chain Reaction report, written by a former Treasury economist, found the total number of homes in England owned by those aged 65 and over is projected to increase from 3.9m today to at least 5m by 2030.
Yet as a country we are only building around 8,000 new specialist properties for older people a year. The reality is that a growing proportion of people in later life keep feeling unable to move from their
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www.thecarehomeenvironment.com • January 2021
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