What’s in a name? It’s important to get the terminology right

Extra care housing, housing with care, assisted living, retirement villages, very sheltered housing, care village, retirement community – I could go on: it is no exaggeration to say that our sector suffers from a massive terminology problem!

While we would all agree that we are not care homes, and also most definitely different from sheltered housing, there is no one term to describe effectively the same thing: older people living in their own apartment (either rented, owned or part owned) with security of tenure, 24-hour staff presence on site, dining options and – importantly – access to care services and support services that enable customers to remain independent for as long as possible.

Over the years, numerous research reports have shown that customers are very confused about the plethora of options on offer: research by Shakespeare Martineau (opens new window) showed that 51% of the public associate all forms of retirement housing with an ‘old people’s home’ or ‘nursing home’.

Likewise, research by Octopus Real Estate (opens new window) showed that there could be up to 2.5million older people who would consider moving into our members’ form of provision if they were aware of their options.

ARCO’s own research (opens new window) showed that only one in five older people were confident about the meaning of the various terms on offer.

The consequences of the proliferation of terms are significant: those of us who are involved in working with stakeholders to grow the sector can attest that explaining what it is we are, and what it is we are not, is a waste of everyone's efforts and resources. This also means that too often customers are confused about what their options are. While we know that our option might be absolutely the best option for them at this stage in the life, we are letting the situation continue in which they haven't the foggiest.

By letting this situation continue we are reducing the number of people in a position to take up the offer.

This has to change, and therefore ARCO has conducted both qualitative and quantitative market research with consumers of the last two years.

To be clear: this is aimed at finding the best possible term, not the perfect term: the language used for products that need to be both aspirational but at the same time scribe a product that does address people's needs (for social connection, full support, or for care needs) will inevitably be emotionally charged. Therefore, we set out to find a term that described both the fact that it was for accurate, aspirational, and authentic.

We are well aware that the word retirement is in itself contentious. However, market research has consistently shown that approximately two thirds of older people do not mind the use of the word retirement as a descriptor of their status of life – and the third that does not like the word like the alternatives even less. In other words: the term "retirement" is preferable to being labelled almost, elderly, senior, silver – getting ever more euphemistic – being a member of the "experienced generation".

Other terms were also tested in the course of the research – for example, the word "later living community" was disliked by nearly half of all the people consulted. Likewise, the term "senior living community" – only one in 10 potential customers thought that "senior living community" included any additional services.

Hence, the research struck strongly pointed towards the adoption of the term "Integrated Retirement Community", as suggestions for integration included being connected to the local community, the integration of care services, integration of lifestyle services and so on.

Likewise, the term community scored strongly, as older people – understandably – had a strong desire to reconnect with other human beings after such a long period of lockdown.

To be very clear: we are not saying that the term "Integrated Retirement Community" will now find its way into common parlance when it comes to describing products to consumers. This may take time, but initially this term will serve as the category definition that our members will adopt, and we will encourage other people to adopt. Just like the term "SUV" has become synonymous with a certain type of car, this will become synonymous with housing option with deeper forms of integration – the housing with care model.

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Michael Voges is the Executive Director of the Associated Retirement Community Operators (ARCO), the representative body for housing-with-care providers for older people in the UK. Michael set up ARCO on behalf of its founding members in 2012, and is a regular contributor to parliamentary inquiries, sector conferences and the press. ARCO's work is focused on tackling issues around regulation and policy, self-regulation, public awareness and supply of high quality retirement communities. 

And, if you found this blog of interest, Michael is a speaker at the Housing LIN Summit 2021 - A Festival of Ideas in the session, Housing in later life: improving choice by building a better offer. Drawing on latest research and policy, and the call in the Adult Social Care White Paper to incentivise a better range of housing options, this session explores examples of innovative practice to create aspirational places to attract people to ‘rightsize’ thereby improving their housing choices in later life.

Lastly, if you would like to find out more about how the Housing LIN can provide you with bespoke support, please email us at: info@housinglin.org.uk