Taking Care Of Getting Older

Demand for modern, purpose-built facilities like Newhaven is increasing.

It’s been said before that these are interesting times for social housing but if there's one area undergoing the greatest degree of change it would have to be sheltered housing. The effects of an ageing population and a changing expectation of what care and support people want and need are fast creating a range of challenges in the sector that require some brave new thinking. The general impression I get from other providers is that many are waiting until the waters have calmed before making decisions about how they will operate. Our approach is slightly different and it’s based on a view that although it’s a very confusing situation we believe we have to be in the sector working out what the new opportunities are and consequently getting there first.

The upshot is that we need to have an incredibly clear picture of not only what's going on in general terms with sheltered housing on a broader scale, but we need to find out what's going on with the sheltered schemes that we operate – but how on earth do you do that? Well, it's actually pretty simple, you go and ask and then you listen. Our sheltered housing schemes have been in a review process since last May. This has given us a very good idea of exactly what it is that our partners and our customers actually want – as ever, it's fascinating to see how these things differ from what you might imagine as you sit in a boardroom, which highlights the golden rule about assumptions making an ass out of you and m…actually, maybe that only works with assume.

The opening of facilities like Newhaven which are custom-built to the sort of requirements outlined by customers, have grown out of this listening process. As well as opening new facilities though, we have to look at whether we need to close some existing schemes which is why we decided to take a more in-depth look at three of our current schemes Wellgreen Lodge, Waterside Court and Palace Road.

These were highlighted in the review as being likely to lose a significant amount of money. For example, Wellgreen was predicted to make a loss of £830,000, Waterside £997,000 and Palace £826,000. That only tells one side of the story though – there are reasons why these residences are not profitable – whether it's local competition, location away from local facilities or simply because they offer a type of care that customers are less interested in. When we review different schemes, it can be a stressful situation for the people living in them. As a result we try and do this as sensitively as possible and make sure that at every step we tell people what we're doing, why we're doing it and what decisions are being made.

So what have we decided? Well, working with the residents at Wellgreen has helped us look again at the finances of the scheme to see how we can increase income and reduce some of the costs. As it stands feedback from what customers have told us has led to a decision not to do anything with Wellgreen Lodge. Waterside Court is more complex because the issue is that it is not attracting people to move in. Mindful of the impact of any decision we could make at the scheme we are continuing to look for a longer term solution to address this. We have told the residents that we don’t expect to make any changes for at least 12 months. In the meantime these developments will be left and we will be looking to implement the suggestions for improvements that we had.

The property at Palace Road is slightly different in that the council currently own land next to the site, which we can use to develop a new scheme of the type that our customers are saying they’re more interested in. The current tenants of Palace Road have been told about the findings of the review and we are now starting to work with them to listen to what they want to do next. As always we will do our absolute upmost to make sure that any relocations are made as smoothly as possible and that we do what we can to reduce the impact of the decision. As ever if you have thoughts or comments to add then feel free to tweet THT or add a comment below.