New ways to stay out of the care home

New ways to stay out of the care home

'I can't speak highly enough about them,' says Barbara Woods. 'What they have done has made a great difference to my life.' The 70-year-old Mancunian suffers from Parkinson's, osteoporosis and a diseased liver. Four years ago she reached the stage where going down the stairs or showering alone were frightening for her, as she feared she might fall and injure herself.

When she and her husband approached Manchester Care and Repair, the local home improvement trust, they put in bannister and shower rails a fortnight later. This small job - which cost the Woods nothing - took 'a lot of fear' away from Mrs Woods, 'gave me a little bit of independence again' and even helped their relationship ('I don't nag at him to do these things now').

Mrs Woods is fortunate in the sense that her local home improvement agency (HIA) is regarded as a shining example nationally. HIAs are not-for-profit, locally based organisations that help vulnerable or older people maintain and improve their houses rather than move into a care home. All of Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland are covered by HIAs, - and coverage in England has reached 90 per cent of the population.

The prime movers in creating HIAs and funding them are local authorities. 'It's absolutely a postcode lottery,' says Ken Spencer, director of Foundations, the national HIA body.

While some parts of the country, such as Manchester, get top-class service (including small jobs done for free), other.....continued below

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parts have no HIA or one with a much narrower remit. In some areas, HIAs focus on advising people on equity release schemes - helping homeowners to get cash through a home loan or partial sale.

The obvious problems here are that not everyone is a homeowner; many homes are not suitable for equity release; and many people (such as Mrs Woods) need very small jobs done - while equity release, on average, raises more than £30,000.

Other solutions are emerging, however. Economic Lifestyle has recently launched a product, 'Find and Afford', which helps people who want to move home. Rex Priggen, 76, has just bought a flat in Westgate-on-Sea, Kent, under a deal in which he paid 49 per cent of the £165,000 price and Economic Lifestyle paid the rest. 'We couldn't have bought a reasonable place to live without this sort of deal,' says the former British Gas employee.

There is a growing demand for housing solutions that allow people to stay in their own homes rather than going into an institution, says John Galvin, director of the charity Elderly Accommodation Counsel (EAC). 'If people have a dread of care homes, then anything that seems more familiar to them, they will want,' he says.

There are now 33,000 'extra care home' properties in 1,000 locations in the country - homes designed for people who want to live on their own rather than in a room in a larger nursing home - that provide some extra kinds of services, such as supervision of residents, medical staff on call, meals, hairdressing, social events and shared function rooms or meeting areas.

The government has put £87m into creating such properties for 1,500 people between 2006 and 2008.