The Partington Experience Checking the options for developing Extra Care – build new or remodel? Louise Cumberland: Trafford MBC Pippa Stilwell: Institute of Public Care Institute of Public Care Trafford MBC

The Partington Experience 1. Challenges  Imperative to include and involve local people and their representatives in generating ideas and decision making  Politicians represent local wish to conserve existing resources for older people  But - Inadequate buildings – residential care doesn’t meet standards but great demand for places  Sheltered scheme offers bedsit accommodation: mostly empty: ceased letting: only 8 tenants  Perception that this was home for tenants and residents

The Partington Experience 2. Opportunities  Local context – what else is happening in Partington? Isolated geography, deprivation indices  Partington is the only area in Trafford that has attracted regeneration investment.  Opportunity to enhance and increase the quality and quantity of services in Partington  Strategic recognition that older people’s services no longer meet local needs and aspirations  Extra Care opportunities – for older people and to wider community, employment and business potential

The Partington Experience 3. Ideas  The scheme itself offers business opportunities for local shopkeepers, hairdressers, restaurant  Involving CHOICES – local employment initiative based in Health Living Centre works to identify local people who want to train to become carers.  Expanding the voluntary sector in Partington, especially Age Concern Trafford, Partington and Carrington Community Transport (PACT) and Trafford Care and Repair.  Offering better quality day care and home care opportunities based around the Extra Care scheme – better opportunities for the community through the provision of EC.  Intermediate care delivered through provision of a training kitchen

The thinking behind the checklist  Need for rationale to balance immediate needs and wishes of residents and local people with current and future opportunities for community regeneration  Need to consider building potential – need for checklist to focus on all the issues relevant to decisions around bricks and mortar, including local and strategic overview, potential offered by regeneration and Extra care opportunities, Extra Care as a concept that includes and goes beyond the build environment.

Developing the checklist: key issues  Important not to fudge decision making – have you really considered everything? The checklist is designed to tease out hidden issues and to give clarity.  Do you know enough about Extra Care to facilitate the development of a flagship scheme in your area?  Are you burdened with lots of baggage – for example, offloading unpopular buildings in unsuitable areas, unworkable community dynamics – which doom your project to failure before you start? What can you change?  Will users like what you do enough to want to live there?

The checklist  Aims to make commissioners and housing providers think hard about all the issues involved in decision making  Offers a schematic way of examining the options  Is not a questionnaire  Does not give an arithmetic score at the end: does give the opportunity for setting out the main issues.

Overriding constraints  Does the scheme fit with strategic priorities – eg at regional level, Supporting People priorities, Local Delivery Plans, or Social Services older people’s strategies?  Is the site too far from goods and services, transport links etc? Is too steep? Are older people already choosing not to live there?  Is the site in an area where people feel at risk of crime and anti-social behaviour?  Is the existing building too small both to meet standards and deliver enough units?

Overriding constraints: contd  Will the building cost too much to build and maintain?  Will the target population be unable to afford rents, care and support costs and /or equity stakes?  Do local health and care providers have the will and the capacity to support the scheme?

Five options  Refurbish an ordinary sheltered housing scheme (internal, not structural change).  Remodel an ordinary sheltered housing scheme (major change to existing scheme: could involve enlarging bedsits, widening corridors, building new community/leisure amenities  Demolish and build new on the same site.  Demolish and build new on a different site.  Undertake more preparatory work  Consider other ways of delivering housing with support

Three sections  Consultation and planning  Building /design standards  Funding, costs and income

Expanding the checklist Does the checklist cover all the likely issues? For example:  Will it tease out the main issues if one proposal masks lots of different agendas?  Will it make it easier to balance all the costs and benefits of a particular proposal?  Is decision-making properly informed by user and stakeholder views?  Does it reflect best practice in design and service delivery?

What have we missed? Have we allowed for everything? Principles of:  Knowing what will never work.  Listening to local older people and other stakeholders.  Knowing what Extra Care is, and what constitutes best practice in all its aspects.  Building all the costs and constraints in the model.  Strategic fit of proposals, linking with approved programmes of potential funders. Regeneration, Neighbourhood renewal.  Links with partner agencies.

Further reading  General  Building /Design standards  Assistive Technology  Remodel versus refurbish  Appraisal  Models of Extra Care