Grimsby 0 Essex 2: How moving house made me think about disruption to older people’s lives

Fans of the 80s band The Housemartins will remember their album entitled London 0 Hull 4. It took a swipe at the metropolitan elite and championed the band’s home town with a fake football result. I’m a proud Yorkshireman who lived up there near Hull for many years – until I got my present role as Chief Executive here at the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) in London.  So after several months travelling up north on a Friday afternoon, along with selling a house and then buying one in Essex, we’ve now settled into our new abode.

All very disruptive. But it got me thinking. Our move is entirely of our own making: the motivation is a change of job, and the beauty is we’re nearer our children, who study and work in London. However, what if you’re older and you move, and it’s not what you’re personally planning?

Here at SCIE we’re big fans of people staying in their own homes for as long as possible and / or as long as they want, but sometimes a care home is the right option. But it’s a challenge. One form of isolation can be replaced with another and in a care home the new surroundings - and the impact of the personal change - can have a similar effect on your state of mind. 

Last December, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence announced a quality standard kite-mark on the mental wellbeing of people living in care homes. Our Chair, Lord Michael Bichard, responded by saying that residents need to become part of the communities they live in; care homes can create opportunities for other local residents to play a role in the life of the care home. In other words, care homes shouldn’t be hidden away. Often, older people’s mental health can easily be overlooked; but looking after mental health can be just as important as good physical care.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt MP talked about ‘our national shame’ in a speech last year when referring to loneliness. It’s important that care homes are included in this. That’s because loneliness is not just something we feel when we don’t have anyone to talk to, but it can be because of a state of isolation, depression or abandonment.

But another critical factor is co-production. We don’t exist just to serve up what care and support we think people need. We encourage their involvement as experts by experience. On our film on nutritional support in care homes, the man who asks for tripe is shouted down by other residents, but he doesn’t care. The main thing is that he’s being consulted - and that can have a massively positive effect on mental health.

I’m settling down to life working in the capital, itself a place where you’re told you don’t always talk to your neighbours. (Not like up t’North!) But isn’t it up to me to be involved with my new community? And certainly it’s up to all of us to offer older people the chance to fully take part in their communities, especially if they live in a care home. 

A cracking example of community working in Bexley

This week I met a man in his sixties who's lived with a family for eleven years. It's just the sort of community activity that I've been banging on about since starting as Chief Executive of the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) in January.  

His name’s Tom and he’s part of the Shared Lives scheme. There are 12,000 Shared Lives carers in the UK. Carers share their family and community life with someone who needs some support to live independently. In this case, Tom has a learning disability but most importantly, the support he gets means he can contribute to his community. 

Alex Fox is a trustee at SCIE and he invited me to see the scheme in Bexley. It's a cracking example of how home, family and community-based ways of working mean that people are more engaged and their lives are improved. It's time that people aren't just the passive recipients of social care. 

We’ve had one party leader speech during the conference season; I look forward to the others and to social care discussions playing a part in the run-up to the General Election campaign. Schemes like this show what can be achieved by unlocking barriers to community engagement. Our Care Act implementation tools, being developed here at SCIE, will be published soon. Let’s hope the new duties that local authorities will take on, for instance, by providing advocacy services, are a stepping stone to empowering users and carers with the tools they need to contribute to their communities. 

I loved the energy and determination of the people who run the local scheme - Catherine, Tom, Bernice and Mandy. They’re developing a project which shows such good practice in home-based care and support in communities; whilst also recognising the contributions, that people with social care needs, can make to family life.  Meeting the carers, Mr and Mrs Sookarry, along with Tom, brought these principles to life.