A fond farewell to a decade as the Housing LIN Dementia Lead

As my time as the Housing LIN dementia Lead comes to an end, and I hand the baton on to my worthy successor, Viv Lyons, I have been reflecting on the progress made over the period on two key aims:

• An improvement in dementia awareness, knowledge and skills in the housing sector workforce, along with greater understanding of their relevance and importance to the sector
• Improved recognition amongst health and social care professionals of the potential contribution of the housing sector to the health and wellbeing of people living with dementia, and therefore greater inclusion of housing professionals and services in commissioning decisions for individuals and populations 

During my tenure, the Housing LIN has been active on a number of fronts. We have run conferences and regional meetings featuring dementia; developed our acclaimed Focus on Dementia web pages; sat on the Prime Minister’s Challenge on Dementia Champions’ Group; contributed to other advisory groups such as one developing the national dementia strategy; responded to a wide range of consultations, for example the APPG consultation on the dementia workforce; and led work on mental capacity and deprivation of liberty during the Law Commission’s consultation on that topic. We were founding members of the Housing and Dementia Research Consortium (opens new window), active contributors to the Dementia and Housing Working Group, and joined the Dementia Action Alliance (opens new window) with whom we jointly launched a Housing Call to Action. A wide range of case studies, reports and tools have been published which are targeted at both housing and care professionals. These have included a report and resource pack on skilling the general needs housing workforce and a dementia and housing assessment tool for local commissioners.

Of course, the Housing LIN has not been working in isolation. The National Housing Federation, Chartered Institute of Housing, Sitra (now Homeless Link), Care and Repair England, Foundations and many others have also worked to raise the profile of dementia within the housing sector, and we have collaborated with them on various projects. We supported the development of the Alzheimer’s Society’s recently published Dementia-friendly Housing Charter which I hope housing organisations will sign up to.

Such activity is all very well, but have we collectively succeeded in making progress on the twin aims? Sadly, research into housing and dementia is probably the Cinderella of dementia research so it is difficult to answer that definitively.

My impression is that progress has been made, and there are excellent examples of housing providers working to become dementia-friendly organisations, and architects implementing dementia-friendly design principles. The Department of Health recognised the importance of housing in the implementation plan of the 2020 challenge. But cuts to funding and welfare reform appear to have displaced dementia as a priority amongst industry bodies and housing providers, while at the coal face, integrated working and inclusion of the housing sector is still an uphill battle, despite examples of good practice.

It is also important to bear in mind that the housing sector is just one element in the bigger picture. Recent work that I’ve been engaged in considers progress and challenges in greater depth:

• A presentation given at the Building Research Establishment conference assesses how far we’ve got and where we need to get to.
• An interview for Abbeyfield’s ‘Great Minds programme’ (opens new window) for Dementia Awareness week in which I tackle some tricky operational questions about supporting people with dementia in housing settings.

What is absolutely clear to me is the imperative for collaborative working as well as effective dovetailing of all the different facets or jigsaw pieces which go to making up a dementia-friendly society, community, organisation, or housing with care scheme – a constant refrain during my tenure as the Housing LIN Dementia Lead.

We have some way to go before we see this happening consistently across the country but I would like to think that as part of the Housing LIN, I have made a small contribution towards the housing sector’s part in moving towards this. My thanks go to Jeremy for giving me the opportunity and I wish him and Viv all the best in carrying the work forward, as I know they will, with skill, commitment and tenacity. Thanks too to Jerome and Lois for their fantastic backup.