LINks - this week's Housing LIN bulletin (30 July 2015)

Welcome to LINks, the weekly e-bulletin from the Housing LIN (Learning and Improvement Network) where we put a selection of latest information, resources and events under the spotlight. In this week's issue, we would like to draw your attention to the following

Helping Us, Helping You: Housing LIN online survey on Coaching and Mentoring - we want your views

The Housing LIN is developing a new service to the housing and care sector, offering coaching and mentoring to help support the professional workforce and develop the leaders of tomorrow. In a changing, challenging work environment, we recognise that dedicated housing and care professionals need to be able to access support and training to enable you to deliver services in an era of increasing demand and reducing resources.

Using our unique learning and improvement skills, we intend to offer one-to-one Mentoring to individuals who want some additional personal help on their career journey - particularly those entering management roles. This could be the opportunity to work with highly -experienced individuals who have been successful Directors and CEOs and have significant amounts of knowledge to impart.

In order to help us develop Housing LIN Coaching and Mentoring so that it gives you the best help and support in your career, we ask if you could complete this survey by 5pm on Monday, 7 September 2015 at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GGN99MP

All information gathered will be treated in confidence. With our sincere thanks for your participation.


Supported Housing Exemption

As reported in Inside Housing last week, specialised supported housing is likely to be exempt from the new rules forcing social landlords to reduce rent by 1%, the surprise measure announced by the Lord Chancellor earlier this month in his emergency budget.


Safely home: What happens when people leave hospital and care settings?

This report from Healthwatch England's special inquiry into unsafe discharge focuses on the experiences of older people, people with mental health problems and homeless people in their transition of care post a hospital stay.

In summary, it found:

  • People experience delays and a lack of effective coordination between different services
  • People feel left without the services and support they need after discharge
  • People feel stigmatised and discriminated against, and that they are not treated with appropriate respect because of their conditions and circumstances
  • People feel they are not involved in decisions about their care or given the information they need, and
  • People feel that their full range of needs is not considered - People expressed their frustration that their full range of needs - including their physical and mental health, housing, care responsibilities and financial situation - were not all taken into consideration at point of discharge.

The full report from Healthwatch England can be downloaded at:

www.healthwatch.co.uk/sites/healthwatch.co.uk/files/170715_healthwatch_special_inquiry_2015_1.pdf

For more on housing and health links in relation to hospital discharge, view

the hospital 2 home resource pack at: http://www.housinglin.org.uk/hospital2home_pack/


Health and Housing: Finding the Common Ground

This article appeared in Social Housing based on a roundtable discussion with a some leading housing experts from England and Wales to explore the scope for unlocking NHS land and the routes to deliver more capital projects as part of a lasting partnership.

Read at: http://www.housinglin.org.uk/Topics/browse/HealthandHousing/NHSestate/?&msg=0&parent=8693&child=9655

And if you found this of interest, check out the comprehensive resources in NHS land and estates on our Health Intel pages at: www.housinglin.org.uk/Topics/browse/HealthandHousing/NHSestate


English Housing Survey

The latest English Housing Survey from DCLG shows that there was an overall improvement in the visitability of English housing stock from 2007 to 2013, with the number of fully visitable homes (4 features: level access; flush threshold; sufficiently wide doors and circulation space; WC at entrance level ) increasing by around 86% from 744,000 to 1.4 million (3% of the stock to 6%).

As set out in Chapter Two (pp53-59), the most common accessibility feature was the absence of a change in floor level or trip steps at entrance level (75%). However, 25% of all housing stock had no visitability features and interestingly, of the 21.9 million homes that were not already fully visitable, around 2.7 million (12%) could comply through minor work and a further 9.6 million (44%) could comply with moderate work. Around 3.5 million (16%) homes could only be made fully visitable through major (and more problematic) works and the remaining 6.0 million (28%) homes were considered not feasible to make fully visitable.

Read in full at: www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/445370/EHS_Profile_of_English_housing_2013.pdf


Working together- thinking alike: What do councils and local enterprise partnerships expect from housing associations?

This report for The Smith Institute looks at the relationship between local authorities and housing associations and how they can effectively support their communities and build much-needed affordable homes through vehicles such as Local Enterprise Partnerships.

More at: https://smithinstitutethinktank.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/working-together-thinking-alike.pdf


Doing Digital Inclusion: Social Housing Handbook

With over 31% of social housing tenants above retirement age, this handbook by the Tinder Foundation outlines the challenges to support tenants to get online and gain basic digital skills. It offers some tips and resources for how social housing providers can tackle digital exclusion. Download from: http://www.housinglin.org.uk/Topics/browse/HousingOlderPeople/OlderPeopleHousingProvision/Telecare/?&msg=0&parent=987&child=9657


Telecare LIN weekly update

This week's news headlines from the Telecare LIN can be downloaded in two formats (doc; pdf) at:

HIA awards

Foundations have announced the shortlisted agencies for this year's awards.

An overview can be accessed at: http://foundations.uk.com/eventsmeetings/hia-annual-awards/awards-2015


Events supported by the Housing LIN

Law Commission Consultation - Deprivation of Liberty: What Does This Mean for Housing?

To assist housing providers, the Housing LIN, Sitra, National Housing Federation and Arco have joined together to arrange two events at which the Law Commission will outline their proposals and give providers an opportunity to share their views. The first is in London on Monday 21st September and the second in Manchester on 22nd September.

More details at: http://www.housinglin.org.uk/Events/ForthcomingEvents/HousingEventDetail/?eventID=842

Stay networked with the Housing LIN for latest news, views and resources on housing with care matters.