Country's largest rural partnership warns of crisis in elderly care » Housing » 24dash.com

England's largest rural partnership, the Rural Services Network, has warned today of an impending crisis in meeting the housing with care needs of rural elderly people.

It says that unease is building among health and care professionals and local authorities that they face an uphill task in meeting an inexorable rise in special needs.

The warning came as the Government announced it had appointed a team from Defra, the Cabinet Office and from the Social Exclusion Task Force to investigate ways of improving service delivery to older people in rural areas.

Lack of Housing is a Form of Exclusion
RSN says that rural services are stretched, budgets are strained and the specialised housing with care infrastructure is a pale shadow of that in urban areas. It is calling on the government team to focus strongly on housing with care needs in rural areas -for elderly people, for people with dementia and also for groups such as the young long-term disabled. It describes the lack of purpose-built housing with care in the countryside as a form of rural exclusion.

It reports that older rural people seeking private housing with care simply cannot sell their homes to make the move and that there is a long standing scarcity of such accommodation in any case in rural districts. Those seeking local authority rental solutions in rural areas are similarly disadvantaged by a lack of supply.

RSN says that the needs of rural elderly people risk being marginalized. Homes for older people in rural settlements are simply not being built on any discernible scale and where initiatives have succeeded these have not provided the necessary spur to wider debate and action to meet the housing needs of a group which appears to be still 'under the radar'. Its concerns come in a week when the Rural Housing Trust has announced that the credit crunch has forced its decision to no longer build rural affordable housing.

Councillor Roger Begy OBE the Chairman of RSN and Leader of Rutland County Council says: "Our members, who include rural local authorities and a wide range of other rural service providers including Primary Care Trusts, Police and Ambulance Services and transport operators are increasingly concerned about the welfare of vulnerable elderly people in rural areas.

“We can’t expect that there will always be a family member or good neighbour on hand to provide support with care, shopping, drawing money to live on or to help rectify poorly insulated properties that waste energy and consume budgets. The welfare of elderly people with evident housing with care needs must be a priority in rural areas, alongside the provision of affordable housing generally. This is another symptom of the wider rural housing problems our countryside communities are facing."

The Rural Demographic
Of the 9.5M people living in rural England exactly half live in rural towns with the other half in villages, hamlets and dispersed settlements.

RSN says that 70 per cent of women aged 85+ live alone -with a higher incidence in rural areas and that the numbers of people aged 50+ who provide unpaid care do so disproportionately in rural areas. It warns that much of the population growth projected for 2028 will occur in rural communities and urges government to build now a housing and care infrastructure to meet the challenge of an ageing countryside.

Roger Begy says: "Remote rural areas are expected to have a near 50% increase in the number of residents aged over 50 by 2028, compared with about 30% across the country as a whole. Already, Two-fifths of the residents in the English countryside are aged over 50 and one in 12 is over 75 years old.

“We don't see evidence of building to meet these emerging needs. What we need are coherent and adequately funded solutions. It simply cannot be left to a market in deep recession or to the 'infinite elasticity' of rural authorities, service providers and carers. We owe it to elderly people not to ‘make do and mend'."

Audrey Roy, Head of Social Justice and Services for the Commission for Rural Communities said "The average age of people in rural areas is already nearly six years higher than people living in urban areas and the gap is widening by a further three months each year, By 2025 the difference in average age between the rural and urban populations could be as much as ten years.

“This situation will place inevitable and increasing pressure on the delivery of care services in rural areas and, in particular, on demands for housing to meet the care needs of rural elderly people."