Joint action vital to meet demands of ageing population: report

Local authorities need to do more to establish effective links between primary care trusts, housing workers and adult social services if they are to meet people’s needs in a more holistic way and provide better value for money, a new report has claimed.

The Chartered Institute of Housing study – Housing, Health and Care – suggested that better partnership working “can help support care closer to home, give people more independence and deliver greater efficiencies”. It warned of the demands that an increasingly diverse and ageing society will put on the health and care system.

“In many areas, efforts are being made to bring together housing, related support providers, health, and care partners to provide more linked services, which can often help to avoid or reduce costly interventions such as institutional based health or care solutions,” the CIH said.

The report's authors suggested that evidence of the benefits of joint action was already emerging but more needed to be done. They called on local authorities and other organisations involved in this area to build on their work by:

• Utilising and developing common evidence bases;
• Linking up the key strategies to underpin the sustainable community strategy and the local area agreement, and building on the shared priorities identified there;
• Aligning staffing and resources around those shared priorities, and supporting this with sustained investment;
• Building common outcomes for commissioning across housing, care and health sectors;
• Developing capacity in partnership; and
• Finding ways to maximise the effectiveness of those partnerships by identifying better ways to do things and reducing duplication.

Sarah Davis, senior policy and practice officer at the CIH, said: “We need to transform the way we plan for, commission and deliver services that impact on people’s wellbeing. Our report demonstrates that good housing plays an integral role in ensuring people stay healthy, active and independent as long as possible, so securing the best results from our national investment.”

The CIH report was supported by the Department of Health’s housing learning and improvement network, and endorsed by the NHS Alliance and the Association of Directors of Social Servicess.