Perhaps this is not the most conventional of reading matter for The Family Grapevine, but we are aware that many of our readers are at that stage of their lives where they have to take on the additional role of finding suitable housing for their elderly parents. When I heard about the latest Government report on this subject, I thought it would make interesting reading for those of you in this position, trying to make sense of the alien world of retirement housing.
The Government report launched this week (3rd December) supported a new model for retirement homes in Britain. In the report from the Housing our Ageing Population: Panel for Innovation (HAPPI), commissioned by the Homes and Communities Agency, in partnership with Communities and Local Government and the Department of Health.
The HAPPI panel, chaired by Lord Richard Best OBE, carried out extensive research into housing for the elderly and visited 24 schemes in six countries, covering a variety of locations, a range of income groups, diverse lifestyles and cultures and every level of care provision. Richmond Villages, part of the Barchester Healthcare Group, has a development in Painswick, Gloucestershire which is featured as an exemplar for retired living.
Paddy Brice, managing director of award-winning Richmond Villages, says: “We support HAPPI’s call for a national effort to improve mainstream housing and facilities for older people and are delighted Richmond Painswick features as a case study in the panel’s report. The scheme demonstrates that through good design and the provision of excellent facilities and on-site 24-hour assistance and nursing care, a retirement village such as Richmond Painswick has much to offer the over 55s, where quality of life is a priority.”
The HAPPI report identifies ten components for the design of housing for older people and Richmond Villages meets all this criteria as listed below. HAPPI recommends that:
1. The new retirement homes should have generous internal space standards, with potential for three habitable rooms and designed to accommodate flexible layouts.
2. Care is taken in the design of homes and shared spaces, with the placement, size and detail of windows and to ensure plenty of natural light, and to allow daylight into circulation spaces.
3. Building layouts maximise natural light and ventilation by avoiding internal corridors and single-aspect flats, and apartments have balconies, patios, or terraces with enough space for tables and chairs as well as plants.
4. In the implementation of measures to ensure adaptability, homes are designed to be ‘care ready’ so that new and emerging technologies, such as telecare and community equipment, can be readily installed.
5. Building layouts promote circulation areas as shared spaces that offer connections to the wider context, encouraging interaction, supporting interdependence and avoiding an ‘institutional feel’, including the imaginative use of shared balcony access to front doors and thresholds, promoting natural surveillance and providing for ‘defensible space’.
6. In all but the smallest development (or those very close to existing community facilities), multi-purpose space is available for residents to meet, with facilities designed to support an appropriate range of activities – perhaps serving the wider neighbourhood as a community ‘hub’, as well as guest rooms for visiting friends and families.
7. In giving thought to the public realm, design measures ensure that homes engage positively with the street, and that the natural environment is nurtured through new trees and hedges and the preservation of mature planting and providing wildlife habitats as well as colour, shade and shelter.
8. Homes are energy-efficient and well insulated, but also well ventilated and able to avoid overheating by, for example, passive solar design, the use of native deciduous planting supplemented by external blinds or shutters, easily operated awnings over balconies, green roofs and cooling chimneys.
9. Adequate storage is available outside the home together with provision for cycles and mobility aids, and that storage inside the home meets the needs of the occupier.
10. Shared external surfaces, such as ‘home zones’ that give priority to pedestrians rather than cars, and which are proving successful in other countries, become more common, with due regard to the kinds of navigation difficulties that some visually impaired people may experience in such environments.
There are typically three types of accommodation in a Richmond Village: Independent Living Apartments, Assisted Living Apartments and care bedrooms within an impressive care home. Facilities at Richmond Painswick include a restaurant, café, IT room and library, craft rooms and a wellness spa with a hairdresser, treatment rooms, gym and swimming pool.
For further information about Richmond Villages please call: 0845 415 0842 or visit www.richmond-villages.com