It is said that a measure of any society is in how it treats its vulnerable members, including the elderly, but how well does senior care embrace societal trends?
What do we want future extra-care housing to look like? An inclusive neighbourhood? A reflection of the communities in which we live? Refuge for the lonely and socially isolated?
Evidence shows us that loneliness is worse for you than obesity (Holt-Lunstad, 2010) so we have a collective responsibility to think about designing services that improve the health of our population. It seems that loneliness has more to do with the quality rather than the number of relationships. How can this be extrapolated into meaningful decisions concerning the types of accommodation that are available to our ageing population?
Manchester is recognised by the World Health Organisation as the UK's first age friendly region and is now looking to follow similar schemes in Europe by creating the UK's first extra-care facility, where just over 51% of the spaces will be allocated to LGBTQ+ people.
Integration of communities is high on the agenda for the government and councils, and it feels like it's time for this to play out wider and further in a system which might be said to be slow to develop practices to implement cultural change. Certainly, where it improves the quality of care, there is room for innovation.
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