Communities minister, Baroness Andrews, to-day announced the allocation of £33,000,000 over 2 years from next April to help local councils set up or expand handy person services. The schemes help elderly people by providing mobile staff who will assist with routine maintenance and minor adaptations to help them stay safe and independent at home. Tasks can include fitting grab rails to help people with mobility problems and securing loose stair carpets to prevent falls, and chores, such as clearing gutters that become more hazardous as people get older. Depending on the council policy, the service will be free, or will involve a minimum charge.

Baroness Andrews said it could mean ' the difference between living at home or moving into care'.

Although Art Awards 2009 have not yet been formally launched, readers of this and the EAC Art Awards website can get an early start in preparing for entry to next year’s competition. The prize giving and week long exhibition will again be held in the first week of September 2009, almost certainly at the Bankside Gallery, Hopton Street, on London’s South Bank, scene of this year’s successful exhibition.

 Anyone over the age of 60 can submit one or more entries to the competition. It is primarily intended to encourage amateur artists, whether working from home, from art classes, societies, the U3A, etc, or from retirement and sheltered housing, care homes or day centres, to experience the challenge and discipline of entering a national competition, and the potential excitement of being short listed and exhibited in a prestigious London gallery.

EAC’s long standing commitment to the Art Awards goes back to 1995, based on a strong belief that older people, given help and support as or when necessary, can be just as creative and talented as younger people, and just as eager to carry on active lives as members of their own communities. Each year the high quality of the submitted works of art, the sheer energy and enthusiasm of the entrants, aged from 60 to over 90, and their appreciation of the recognition and opportunity which the competition offers them, make the considerable investment of many people’s time and money worth while. 

Entries to the competition can be in any medium; watercolour, pencil, oils, charcoal, collage, pastel, acrylic, ceramics, textiles, sculpture, photography. In the first instance, entrants are required to submit a thumbnail or colour photo of their work. Details of the full rules of entry will be publicised early in 2009.

In 2008, as reported on this blog in November, entries to the competition were overwhelmingly from the South of England, with The North (including Birmingham and all points North and West, including Northern Ireland) only contributing 17.5% of the total. Are there really less artistic and talented Over 60s north of Birmingham than south of it? Are older people in northern towns and cities less likely to find classes or societies to join, that will encourage and support them in maintaining and developing their creative skills? Are the Art Awards not adequately publicised further north?  Whatever the reason, this is a disturbing bias, and you may well be in a position to help overcome it.  If you are an artist yourself or you are a professional working in the supported housing sector, and you live in, or further north of Birmingham; or in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, then EAC Art Awards 2009 will particularly welcome your own entry or one (or even better, several) from people within the housing scheme, or care home  that you represent.

It is taken as read that all entries to the EAC Art Awards, from anywhere within the country, and from people of any age, (as long as it’s over 60) are very much welcomed, valued and respected, as representing the aspirations of the artist, often under what can be very difficult circumstances, to continue to create. As one 94 year old, who has entered the Art Awards for several years, put it, “to be able to contribute, from fading eyesight and shaking hands, a pleasing visual effort, is no mean talent,” adding, “if I’m around next year, I shall be entering again, along with two other over 90s from the sheltered housing scheme where I live.”

So….. don’t wait on the launch! Artists need to start preparing now, in the dark winter months, and be ready to make EAC’s Over 60s Art Awards exhibition 2009 better than ever!

If you would like to respond to anything within this blog, I would be delighted to hear from you. Please contact me at marg.millington@eac.org.uk

Joan Seabrooke, winner of the EAC Angela farnell Memorial Prize 2008, at home

 with Scheme Manager Dennis

The Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) has recently published a report "Performance ratings for adult social  services in England 2008" It concludes that overall the services that social service departments in England provide to adults who qualify for their assistance have improved. They judged in the last two years 28 local authorities have got better (19%) and 11 deteriorated (7%).

CSCI's Chief Inspector, Paul Snell said "There is a great deal of good work going on in local councils around England. People who do qualify for care are getting better services......Councils are improving outcomes for people in a number of key areas such as an increased focus on personalisation, choice and control........This year's ratings show that in many councils people are better served because of strong management and leadership, and a political commitment to social care."

However, an earlier report by CSCI "Cutting the cake fairly", published in October 2008, highlighted that many English authorities have tightened their eligibility criteria and those excluded from their help often struggle.  

These findings have particular relevance for elderly people as the majority of social service departments' budgets are spent on them.

CSCI is the inspectorate for adults' social care in England, responsible for regulating and inspecting all social care providers and for assessing the performance of local councils in delivering their adults' social services functions. Both publications can be downloaded free from their website. http://www.csci.org.uk

Dear Colleagues,

We are endeavouring to find any research and evaluation evidence that exists relating to extra care housing for people with dementia including,

• the design and use of the built environment
• facilities, furnishings and equipment
• the social environment
• care, support and therapeutic services
• organisation and management.

The Housing and Dementia Research Consortium has been set up in order to help galvanise the generation the of robust research evidence which is directly relevant to providers and commissioners of housing with care for people with dementia.  One of the initial priorities identified for the Consortium is to find out what is already known about what works and what doesn’t work, disseminate the evidence, and identify where the gaps are to inform future research activity programmes. 

The new Housing and Dementia Research Consortium (HDRC) has received funding from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation to carry out a review of research evidence relating to Extra Care housing for people with dementia.

A hugely important part of the review is to locate findings from work organisations have carried out or commissioned that is not available in the public domain.

If you have carried out, or commissioned, any evaluation or research that relates to Extra Care Housing for People with Dementia we would be extremely grateful if you would send a copy of any information or reports you have before the end of December 2008.  Any information and documents we receive will remain strictly confidential and organisations and/or establishments will remain anonymous in the write up of the literature review if this is desired.

Please email hdrc@housing21.co.uk
or telephone 0370 192 4669,
or send hard copies of documents to:
Rachael Dutton
Research Manager
Dementia Voice
Hillside Court
Batten Road
Bristol
BS5 8NL.

The HDRC was set up by Housing 21, Anchor Trust, Hanover and the MHA and has a large and growing membership of housing with care providers, commissioners and other interested organisations and individuals including academics, designers and architects.
The Consortium will promote and initiate research into the approaches and practice which will best support those with dementia living in extra care housing, including care and support services, the social environment and building design.

Elderly tenants of Woking Borough Council have made a complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman about the length of time it took to deal with a younger resident who, they say, caused a nuisance and behaved anti-socially for more than two years before he was evicted. The tenants live in Frenchs Wells in Woking. It was originally built for elderly people with first a resident, and then a mobile, warden. In recent years, due to a perceived surplus of elderly people's housing in Woking, Frenchs Wells was re-designated as general needs accommodation and since then allocations have been made to applicants of any age, who were deemed to be in need, and who required one bedroomed accommodation. Some of the younger residents have lifestyles and habits very different from those of the elderly people who have been there for many years.

This is part of a wider picture of what is happening across the UK, as the changes that resulted from, amonst other factors, the move to Supporting People funding in 2003, mean that people do not have to move to sheltered housing to get support. In many areas resident wardens have been replaced by off-site staff or floating support. While this may be beneficial for elderly people who do not want to move to receive support, it can result in sheltered housing being harder to let and resident warden/scheme manager services can become harder to sustain economically. Unless the change of use is handled very sensitively, it can mean stress and misery for the elderly people who remain, and they may have to adapt not just to the loss of their resident warden/scheme manager, but may also find new neighbours do not share their aspirations for a quiet life.

Since the close of the 2008 exhibition in early September, a great deal has been going on behind the scenes, with a view to bringing 2009’s awards to a wider range of people. 

 The EAC’s Over 60’s Art Awards website (www.artawards.eac.org.uk) has been updated with a video and photo-blog of the 2008 prize-giving event, a photo gallery of the finalists’ work and a special EAC Over 60s Art Awards Exhibition newsletter. The newsletter and catalogue of finalists’ work have also been sent out in hard copy to over 200 of this year’s entrants.  

A number of entrants have responded to the invitation to forward comments and suggestions about how the competition, its entry procedures, venues, the judging, communication etc, might be improved. Also more detail has emerged regarding how people hear about the competition in the first place, and which areas appear to have an established network to facilitate entry and which don’t. For instance, 82.5% of entrants come from the South (with the line drawn roughly through Birmingham), whilst only 17.5% come from the North. This latter figure includes the Birmingham and West Midlands entrants, and all those from points further North, including North Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Zoning in a little deeper, only five people entered the competition from the greater Liverpool area; a disappointing number in its capital of culture year. 

Responses from entrants confirmed once again the very high regard in which EAC’s national art competition for older amateur artists is held, and the much-valued opportunity it offers to enter one’s work in a national forum, experiencing the challenge and exhilaration of competition, and the potential pleasure and reward of success. The responses also yielded a number of very helpful suggestions, including a number of old favourites; eg regional heats, improving the timing and procedures for competition entry and for the delivery and collection of exhibited works, revisiting the idea of mounting a display of ‘Highly Commended’ works. All of these suggestions will be considered in the next weeks, preparatory to launching the 2009 Art Awards. 

A small number of this year’s prize-winners have also agreed to be interviewed throughout the year, in order to provide material for this blog and publicity in advance of 2009’s competition. More news on this later. 

What Next?

2009’s Elderly Accommodation Counsel’s (EAC’s) Over 60s Art Awards will take place next September, almost certainly in the Bankside Gallery, Hopton Street, on London’s South Bank, the scene of this year’s successful exhibition.

The formal launch of The 2009 Awards will, we expect, take place early in the New Year 2009. Look out for further information on the Art Awards website and on this blog, through December and January.

If you are an artist yourself, or you are a professional working in the supported housing sector, then it is time to get preparing for entry in 2009. There are currently 11 prizes on offer; most of them open to all entrants, whilst others, eg the £1000 Angela Farnell Memorial Prize, are only available to entrants from the sheltered housing and care home sector, or who entered through a day centre.

On 21 November 2008, I attended in Brussels Better Life Time 2008, the annual conference of the European Network (EAHSA) a section of the International Association of Homes and Services for the Ageing www.iahsa.net , a professional body of providers of services for the elderly and care home industry in particular. 

The event was hosted by the Belgium bank Dexia and SODEXO, a company providing catering and other services for older people in care and health establishments throughout Europe. 

The theme of the conference was Ageing: from worries to opportunities, and reviewed the market under three main topics: Finance, Services and Real Estate.  The presentations (15) were generally good and informative, as was the Panel Discussion that followed it. I hope that the ppt presentations will soon be available on the Internet. 

It is a great pity that only Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, France, Sweden and The Netherlands were represented, and that there was no presentation on the achievements and prospects for this industry in the UK where new developments such as Extra Care Housing seems to be ahead of what is being developed in Europe to meet the housing and care needs of older people. 

Main points made at the conference

Effect of the credit crunch

• Despite the present financial crisis there is optimism that the care industry is alive and well, and that its market offers good opportunities for expansion, and for investors and developers.

• In France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and also Italy, the building of housing and care homes for older people (mostly for rental) seems much less affected by the credit crunch than in the UK where the housing market is dominated by home ownership.

• The effect of the credit crunch will be felt, not so much because authorities are not ready to invest, but because there will be less money in the public purse. In France, despite the need for more nursing homes, less money is likely to be allocated to this sector.

• In Germany the private sector already is hampered by its inability to borrow money for new projects.

Care services

• On the whole, on the continent, there is not a great deal of price difference between the private and the public sector.

• In France, in particular, this is because all care homes in all sectors are full, so there is no competition.

• In Germany, and probably everywhere else, the public sector models set the standards for the private sector.

• In Europe, governments have to set the conditions, standards of care service for a fast developing private market. The best innovation so far, and likely to take on throughout Europe, is the introduction of individual budget, as now fully operational in the Netherlands (?). This is going to have a considerable influence on the range or services that may have to be developed

• There seems however to be agreement that care at home is the most expensive form of delivery of care to older people

• It was also stated that there was no doubt that extra care housing is cheaper than ‘nursing homes’. This was not discussed, and is certainly not the conclusion in the UK, where people still argue the cost benefits of ECH versus residential care homes let alone nursing home

New developments

• The conference talked much about diversifying, new models of housing with care, yet the care industry seems to continue to bank on the care home model.

• However for Germany, the future of the market lies not in specialised housing, but in lifetime homes and the upgrade.

• It is not difficult to put together and obtain finance for the development of sheltered or care homes, but the essential problem remains: how to guarantee the delivery of services.

• In PPP in particular, local authorities find it difficult give account of what happened to the funds directed to the services provided by private companies.

New areas of growth

• Financial products to help elderly people pay for care

EVIDEM is a major new initiative on identifying what works in the care and provision of services for people with dementia or memory problems, which is looking for volunteers to help in reaching their goal.

Ther are five projects that will consider diagnosis; challenging behaviour; incontinence at home; enhancing end of life care; and practical guidance on the use of the law about making decisions for people who might be unable to do so themselves (the Mental Capacity Act 2005).  EVIDEM is seeking volunteers who live in North London, Essex, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire.  They may live in any setting.  If you, a person you are looking after, or a friend or family member are currently experiencing memory problems or have been diagnosed with dementia and want to consider volunteering to take part, please contact one of the Programme Managers by E-mail or telephone:
David Lowery: d.lowery@nhs.net / 020 3214 5889 or
Jane Wilcock: j.wilcock@pcps.ucl.ac.uk / 020 7830 2239

They will be pleased to answer any questions you may have that will help you to decide if you want to be involved in this important research.

The Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) has recently published a study “Safeguarding adults” on the effectiveness of local authorities’ arrangements to safeguard adults, including elderly people, from abuse and on the support they offer to those who experience abuse. CSCI’s report found: 

• The effectiveness of arrangements to help prevent abuse and provide support for people who have been abused varies within and between local authorities’ areas.  It also varies within individual care services. There are councils showing active leadership and building strong strategic partnerships. However, there is a gap between the best and worst performers.
• More needs to be done to ensure people who direct their own support are safeguarded.  
• The evidence suggests that if a council is performing well safeguarding its adults a greater number of care services in its area are also performing well. There is an also a positive relationship between a care service’s overall CSCI quality rating and its ability to safeguard adults.

CSCI is the government body responsible for regulating and inspecting all social care providers - whether public, commercial or not for profit. They are also responsible for assessing the performance of local councils’ social services departments. Their press release can be viewed at http://www.csci.org.uk/about_us/press_releases/people_experience.aspx. The full report can be downloaded free from http://www.csci.org.uk/PDF/safeguard%5b1%5d.pdf