Share your best practice with members

Examples of best practice are being sought to promote ways in which members are using sheltered housing as a cost-saving measure on health and social care budgets.

In the current economic climate we are keen to raise awareness of the benefits of good quality of sheltered housing and partnership working between housing providers, their staff, other agencies, including health providers and social care, and most importantly residents.

As the national consortium of sheltered and retirement housing we are aiming to build a bank of case studies showing how our members are leading the field of developing sheltered and retirement housing to meet the needs of an ageing population.

The type of examples of best practice provision we are looking for include:

• Different models of sheltered housing providing high quality housing for older people, be it scheme manager, floating support, or hub and spoke.

• Sheltered housing relieving the cost of more expensive and resource intensive public services, such as demonstrating how support to people living in sheltered housing helps promote health, wellbeing and social inclusion and reduces admissions to hospital and long-stay care.

• Personalising services to provide a menu of options to target support where it is needed in order to increase value for money so staff capacity can be fully used where it is required.

• Remodelling of buildings to meet the needs of an ageing population and the changing needs of people accessing sheltered and retirement housing.

• Providing clear allocations policies through partnership working between local authorities housing departments and Supporting People lead officers in order to address tensions between traditional allocation criteria for general housing need and Supporting People requirements to prioritise those with support needs.

• Partnership working between housing, care and support providers to offer a menu of support options to older people, especially where this helps to alleviate ‘bed blocking' and allows older people to live independently.

If you have an example that you would like to submit for use in media relations, to share with members through our literature and website, or in ERoSH's lobbying activities, please email Lucy Beaumont or call her on 024 7656 0448.