The deadline for nominations has been reset to 30th March 2012. Now that the date of the Awards Celebration has been fixed to 21st May, we can extend the nomination period by another month. Despite the new cost of the nomination packs, orders for them are piling in, and so are the submissions. To date we have received nominations from 223 groups of residents, such as the one on this photo, sent by the residents of Westmead, Barnsley, an extra care scheme managed by South Yorkshire Housing Association Ltd.

EAC has devised an entertaining method of consulting the residents of retirement housing. This card-game satisfaction survey informs managers and housing providers on how their residents value their home, the communal facilities, the services they receive and the lifestyle.

The card game involves the residents in small groups as well as individually, giving them the chance to discuss statements and agree on ratings, but also to respond privately.

EAC Provider Reports come in two types:

Type A reports are available for all schemes which were nominated by their residents for the annual National Housing for Older People Awards

Type B reports are the output of specially commissioned consultations

A sample report and a price list are available at http://www.housingcare.org/eac-services.aspx

If more than two or three schemes are involved in type A or type B consultations, the service will include an additional free Provider Aggregate Report.

For more information call 020 7820 1682 or email alex.billeter@eac.org.uk

 

With 65% more entries than last year these Awards confirm their popularity amongst residents of sheltered and retirement housing schemes.

 

The data collected from over 3500 residents has allowed us to select the 34 winners if this year's awards. However it does not stop there, these answers will enable us to report to housing providers on the strengths and weaknesses of their schemes, as perceived by their residents, while protecting the residents' confidentiality.

 

We are working on a provider’s report that will clearly present these results, including regional and national ranking within the many categories.

 

Our long term ambition is to further increase the award participation and help schemes to focus on the areas that the residents have highlighted. We will also be combining the results with our existing information on  the schemes to identify features that drive residents satisfaction. 

 

 

Shaun Brewer

Data Analyst Consultant

All the nominations for this year’s Awards have been entered. More than 3000 residents of sheltered and retirement housing, including extra care and assisted living, have responded, an increase of almost 60% over last year. Nominations are sent in the form of the score sheets completed by the residents while playing the nomination game (card game) to share their views on their housing schemes and the services they received.

 

EAC has again received several testimonies from residents, scheme managers and wardens, confirming that this form of consultation enjoyed by most participants.

 

Cheques for £100 are being sent to the lucky 20 raffle winners drawn from the 847 nominations received from groups of residents. The prize money is to be used for the enjoyment of the residents of each lucky scheme on the recommendation on the winning group.

 

The 34 finalists, will be announced on this website in late November or early December

 

Read more on the Housing Awards webpage

A Celebration of Housing for Later Life

 

 

At last the retirement housing sector has its own dedicated awards. At the inaugural event at Lords on Feb 4th around 350 guests, including designers, providers and managers of retirement housing and over 100 elderly residents will be present to see 32 Awards handed out across 11 categories of retirement housing and housing with care. Uniquely, the finalists and the awards were determined by residents and not the industry –upholding the central aims of empowerment and listening to consumer feedback.

 

 

The list of winners and a special page on this event will appear shortly on our website

The nomination process for these new awards is now well underway. The response has been brilliant. These awards are supported by the Department for Communities and Local Government, and by the Housing LIN of the DH Care Networks. The Nationwide Building Society is one of its main sponsors.

For the first time residents of retirement housing, sheltered housing, assisted living, extra care housing, etc, can nominate schemes through a consultation involving them in small groups as well as individually. A deck of cards has been designed to stimulate discussions and help capture satisfaction ratings on design, services, and well-being.

Aims
• Publicly celebrate the best specialist housing for older people
• Engage thousands of residents in identifying what contributes to quality of life in traditional and emerging models of specialist housing provision
• Ensure that older people, families and carers have access to the best possible information
• Help shape the future of housing in later life

The Nomination Packs are available from early September 2009; nominations will be expected by the end of October, and the award ceremony will take place in London in January 2010. Housing providers and managers are asked to obtain Nomination Packs and to encourage their residents to participate. If you know someone in retirement or sheltered housing, please tell them about this opportunity to have a voice and be counted.

For general enquiries and order forms:
EAC Housing Awards, 3rd Floor, 89 Albert Embankment, London SE1 7TP
housingawards@eac.org.uk
Tel 020 7820 3755
www.housingcare.org

More information on this website at
http://www.housingcare.org/providers/eac-housing-for-older-people-awards.aspx

The Housing LIN is the national network for promoting new ideas and supporting change in the delivery of housing, care and support services for older and vulnerable adults, including people with disabilities and long term conditions. Visit http://networks.csip.org.uk/housing

The EAC Quality of Information Mark (QI Mark) was launched in December 2007 to encourage housing providers to supply EAC’s National Database of Housing for Older People with more and better details of their retirement housing schemes and developments. This was particularly relevant for Housing-with-Care and Extra Care housing schemes, where available services can include meals, domestic help and full personal care similar to that provided in a residential care home. 

At the time of the launch we decided to give the QI Mark to hundreds of schemes which had completed and returned our extra care questionnaires during the previous 12 months. This allowed us to populate this website with the QI Mark logo, and thus make it familiar in the retirement and sheltered housing world. 

However the QI Mark is valid for 12 months only. This means that schemes that had received the Mark effortlessly will now have to face the task of completing the full 7 page questionnaire, if they wish to retain the distinctive logo on this website. 

We expect that, at least for a while, the present number of accredited schemes (almost 1,900) will drop significantly. We will very soon remind housing providers to renew their QI Marks, but it is never too early to start.    

In addition to being highlighted on HousingCare.org, accredited schemes can ask for a printed certificate and for a QI Mark logo to use on their own brochures, websites, etc. There is a small charge for this service. For more information contact alex.billeter@eac.org.uk or phone 020 7820 1682.  

The EAC Quality of Information Mark (QI Mark) aims to promote and celebrate all forms of retirement housing, and ensure that older people have access to accurate and detailed information when deciding whether to move home. It is awarded to individual schemes following submission of a fully completed QI Mark questionnaire, and is valid for 12 months.

Schemes awarded the QI Mark are highlighted and fully described on EAC’s popular websites www.HousingCare.org and www.extracarehousing.org.uk and in scheme lists distributed through our Advice Line. They will be promoted similarly through the newly launched FirstStop Care Advice service. The promotion of QI Marked schemes in all these ways is a completely free service by EAC.

 

There are as yet no commonly agreed definitions of Extra Care Housing. This may encourage innovations, but it is bound to be confusing.

 

 At EAC we consider Extra Care Housing as one specific type amongst a large array of types of housing schemes and developments for older people, which offer a wider range of services than are available in standard sheltered or retirement housing schemes. We call this large array Housing-with-Care.  Within Housing-with-Care, we are trying to limit the use of the term 'Extra Care Housing' to schemes and developments in which personal care services are available to the residents, on site, 24/7, as one would expect in a residential care home. That definition corresponds to the model encouraged and funded by the Department of Health www.networks.csip.org.uk/housing and the Housing Corporation. 

Various attempts have been made to devise a typology of housing for older people. See for instance p33 of http://www.housingcare.org/downloads/kbase/3004.pdf . We welcome this while realising that in a market flooded with terms such as ‘very sheltered’, ‘assisted living’, ‘independent living’, ‘retirement village’, what matters more than a name is the clarity of the information detailing each scheme or development. This is why we have been urging housing providers for over 15 years to supply our National Database of Housing for Older People with more and more details. To tease them further into helping us, we have recently introduced the EAC Quality of Information Mark which is discussed elsewhere on this website.

If you think that some other Housing-with-Care categories are ripe for a commonly agreed definition, please let us know. Close care is probably the next one in line.