My last three blogs have looked at the origins of ExtraCare’s Retirement Villages; the development rationale; and the model for care and support. The immediate question then posed was is this financially viable as the community ages. The simplistic answer is yes if residents pay for it themselves by trading equity in their property for care and support.
However, it is worth stepping back and looking at the bigger picture first. The model is intended to be an integration of four key elements :- ACTIVITY; HEALTH; SUPPORT; FINANCE. All need to be at play for the model to work well.
Let’s examine each one in turn :-
- ACTIVITY – the wide range of facilities available in a village is designed to encourage residents to live an active lifestyle. It draws on the skills of residents to participate in the running of the village and to socialise with other residents. Volunteering and taking an active part in managing the village, can give people a continued sense of worth and achievement. Way beyond the wrap around lifestyle of residential care.
- HEALTH – this starts with a proactive approach to wellbeing. Regular health checks and medication reviews with a well-being nurse and if required liaison with GP’s. Promotion of exercise linked to the fitness coaches. Healthy eating advice to combat obesity.
- SUPPORT – not everybody who moves into a village needs support and some will never need it. The lowest level maybe help with house cleaning. Next is assistance with care. For a few they may require nursing care. This could be paid for by Social Services or occasionally the NHS, but resources are increasingly limited. To access services more themselves residents will probably have to pay for it themselves. Hence the need to trade equity for care.
- FINANCE – waiting on Governments to adequately fund social care has been a decades long issue. Because they had not anticipated increased longevity nor significantly increased morbidity. Politically it has now become to difficult to resolve, so the only answer is for the vast majority of older people to accept they have to provide for themselves. The health insurance industry has exited this market because of the difficulty of predicting long term care costs.
If Retirement Housing operators truly believe their lifestyle model prolongs healthier active lives, then they should be confident enough to provide a model of funding for long term care and support. With the caveat that they may need stop/loss insurance to cover extreme risk.
THERE IS STILL MORE TO COMPLETE THE FINAL PICTURE.
See my next post.
GrumbleSmiles 
Today is today, and with the new government and their policies for taxation and benifits for the citizens of the Uk, I am unsure of my financial future being 81 years old and a pensioner.
I note reading the attached blog by ;Dear JOHN’ retirement villages 2017, he mentions income/insurance policies/ and the possible huddles of financial affairs once one has been retired a number of years. THis is my delema, the insurance policies which one takes out in a working life usually has an anniversary date when one can ‘CASH IT OUT’ after that date it is a ‘DEATH POLICY ONLY’ and the benifits are for ones named ones/dependants.
When at retirement age now today maybe 70’s not 65 yeats of age. one would have had to consider life in an organisation such as the ‘Extracare Charities trust’ retirement villages some time when one was considering the possible future say in ones early 60’s, and base the cost of living/support, on ones financial future at this age. It is not easy, and one has to decide does one wish independance-own home one has become mortgage free off, or a reinvestment selling the home and buying in a retirement village or investing in one for ones future life, and the acknowledgement that support is available, at the cost of the actual day [when one needs it in maybe 8/10 years time after retirement.] It is a neccessary step one has to take.
There are many alternatives to sheltered housing/care homes/retirement villages, it is a personal choice. In these time in the nation UK we have a change in governemnt and today the political press and media are dicussing the adantages of their individual policies! However being elderly and a life expectancy of say 15 years I am expendable, and does the society expect the future for each of us to be financially independant, and ‘pop or cloggs’ with no debit/and an inheritance value to the society /our own dependants, having realise life is a not a gamble but a sure run course with some bad and good times, and my personal wish is not to enclumber our children with a /my death debt of any kind, but a smile and a modest thank you finacially to help them through lifes events as they also age,
Maybe a dream too far, but the modern day taxations and cost of living in my home which is secure and safe, and making me think as I now age above 81 and just wonder ‘How long will i survive with peace of mind and financial security?? It may be a social problem for the future for this nation of ours, and the future of political decisions, by parliament, and the future policies of ‘THE EXTRACARE CHARITIES TRUST’