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Housing and long term conditions

More than 15 million people in England have a long term condition. The link between poor housing and ill-health are well known. For example, level access, single storey homes, lifts and telecare/telehealth are examples of housing features that can assist people with long term conditions to remain independent.

The resources on these pages show how housing related support can enable people with long term conditions and their carers to manage their health on a day to day basis, reduce the risk of crises and detect problems early. The benefits of assistive technology in the form of telehealth and telecare are described in terms of health outcomes and cost savings.

Click on the link for information about assistive technology and dementia

Medical assessments for housing applications: Guide for Practitioners

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has published a good practice guide for officers who make decisions on people’s housing needs based on medical assessments.

Counting the Cost: The case for making older people’s homes safe

Analysis by the Building Research Establishment for the Centre for Ageing Better reveals how poor quality housing is incurring huge costs and pressures on the NHS and social care. It reports that by removing the most serious risks to people’s health and safety from the country’s poorest quality homes where the head of household is 55 or over would deliver more than £1.5 billion in annual health and social care savings.

Proactive care to provide care and support for people with moderate or severe frailty

NHS England have issued guidance on developing a more consistent and integrated approach to proactive care across the country for people living at home with frailty.

Moving to healthy homes

In this publication, The Health Foundation sets out the health case for change, outlining the principles to create healthy homes and calls for a long-term strategy to ensure healthy homes for all.

Proactive care: Providing care and support for people living at home with moderate or severe frailty

This 'Proactive care: providing care and support for people living at home with moderate or severe frailty guidance' supports a more consistent approach to proactive care across England for people living at home with moderate or severe frailty, in line with the latest evidence and best practice.

NHS England Anticipatory Care Framework

This Intervention Framework (IF) sets out key areas in which interventions may be effective to address the issues identified during assessment and care planning. It gives an indication of the types of services and supports that might need to be in place to address the AC requirements of individuals.

Easing pressures: how work, money and homes can make our cities healthier and fairer

Published by Impact on Urban Health, this report explores how the places where we grow up, live and work impact how healthy we are. The practical steps that we can all take to reduce health inequity are also the subject of this report.

Making the extra years count – Inequalities in disability and dependency with increasing longevity

This ILC research project, led by Newcastle University and funded by The Dunhill Medical Trust, investigates the trends in longevity, disability, and dependence between 1991 and 2011, and explores how these trends related to long-term conditions and socioeconomic inequalities.

Homes, health and COVID-19: How poor-quality homes have contributed to the pandemic

This report highlights the increased risk poor-quality housing has on those identified as being most at risk of COVID-19, especially in the event of another lockdown.

Costs and outcomes of improving population health through better social housing: a cohort study and economic analysis

This project, funded by Gentoo and Nottingham City Homes, sets out to determine the impact of warmth-related housing improvements on the health, well-being, and quality of life of families living in social housing.

Planning Ahead for Housing in Later Life

The following guides enable older people with long term health conditions and their carers to think through the housing implications of the health condition and make plans accordingly, particularly with regard to future housing needs.

Off the Radar? The impact of housing disrepair on health in later life

This report from Care & Repair England sets out the national picture with regard to the scale of poor housing conditions amongst older people, its concentration in the owner occupied sector and the...

NICE guidelines: Older people with social care needs and multiple long-term conditions

These latest guidelines from NICE emphasize the importance of empowering older people and their carers to choose and manage their own support. It makes recommendations about: identifying and assessing...

How's Life? 2015 - Measuring wellbeing

This online resource from the OECD describes the essential ingredients that shape people's well-being in OECD and partner countries. It includes a wide variety of statistics, capturing both material...

Fit for Frailty

These new practice guides from British Geriatrics Society in association with the Royal College of GPs and Age UK, sets out how to enhance the lives of older patients to remain at home for as long as...

Active by Design: Designing places for healthy lives - A short guide

This guide from Design Council CABE makes the case for taking action to tackle twenty-first century health problems through designing and managing places and buildings that encourage physical activity....

The Unhealthy State of Homelessness: health audit results 2014

Research published Homeless Link shows that the proportion of homeless people in England reporting some form of physical and mental health problem is at least double that of the general population, and...

Focus on .. the health and social care of older people

This publication from the Health and Social Care Information Centre provides a compilation of information on older people living in England to give a broad picture of their health, care and wellbeing....

Managing Long Term Conditions in the Community

This briefing under the NHF's Connecting Housing and Health set of papers, provides an overview of the rise in long-term conditions and the resulting pressures on the health system. Learning on the...

'Transforming Primary Care - Safe, proactive, personalised care for those who need it most'

The Government's strategy for the future of out-of-hospital care services sets out the vision for primary and community care services to become more proactive, personalised and joined up. Importantly,...

Focus On: Social care for older people - Reductions in adult social services for older people in England

This QualityWatch report by Nuffield Trust and Health Foundation reveals that between 2009/10 and 2012/13 spending on social care for older people fell by 15 per cent in real terms from £10.6 billion...

Why we all need to carry the torch for technology enabled support

To coincide with the launch of their new App, David Cockayne, Managed Services Director, Tunstall Healthcare, has written this interesting blog for us

Health begins at Home

This new pamphlet provides interim results at 6 months from a fascinating Family Mosaic research project being undertaken by the London School of Economics. It seeks to measure and test out the impact...

Health care quality for an active later life

Improving quality of prevention and treatment through information: England 2005 to 2012 This report by PCMD Ageing Research Group, University of Exeter concentrate on the health needs of older people...

Delivering better services for people with long term conditions

This new paper from The King's Fund describes a coordinated service delivery model, 'the house of care', that incorporates learning from a number of sites involved in the delivery of health and social...

The Long Term Care Revolution

Innovate UK, formally the Technology Strategy Board (TSB), are undertaking a major programme that seeks to identify, test and develop the drivers to eliminate institutional long-term care through business-led...

An uncertain age

The long term care of older people is a global issue and the potential to impact on the world's economies. This report from KPMG addresses how countries should act decisively to increase capacity, improve...

Economic analysis of the health impacts of housing improvement studies: a systematic review

This report from the University of Glasgow explores the potential for economic evaluation of housing. Using data collated from 25 sites, it identifies the cost data on the intervention and/or economic...

Developing your local housing offer for health and care

Updated in 2016, this tool acknowledges the significance of housing as a partner and contributor to achieving the aims of health and social care services. With references to latest policy and practice,...

Enabling older people with long term health conditions to plan ahead - self help guides

Care & Repair England has been running workshops with older people across the country focussed on thinking and planning ahead for your housing and care in later life for a number of years. As a result...

Personal Health Budgets

Personal Health Budgets are being piloted in England for people who are eligible for NHS Continuing Care funding because they have long term health conditions. In the pilot site people have used the...

Long term Conditions Compendium of Information

Published by the Department of Health this paper brings together data about prevalence and trends in long term conditions (LTCs), describes the policy context and has examples of schemes that enable...

How to ... make effective use of assistive technology in housing

This guide by the Chartered Institute of Housing provides an introduction to housing professionals on how to harness telecare and telehealth, and the implications for housing organisations if using assistive...

Who uses telecare?

A report by the Strategic Society Centre that uses data from the English Longitudinal Study of Aging (ELSA) to analyse the characteristics of people who use personal alarms and alert systems. Information...

Managing long-term conditions using Telehealth in Halton and St Helens

A one page briefing on a pilot run by the NHS and council to support people with three long term conditions to manage their health in their own homes.

Transforming integrated care with telecare in Wakefield

A case study on the outcomes from introducing telecare in Wakefield to enable older people to stay independent, support their carers and provide transition to independent living for adults with learning...