Extra Care Housing Conference - 'People Powered Change: A Festival of Ideas'
The Housing LIN's 5th annual conference, 'People Powered Change: A Festival of Ideas', took place on Friday, 11 March 2016 at the KIA Oval, London
Welcome
Shaun Ley, BBC World at One, welcomed delegates stating that all 300+ places went within hours of the Housing LIN online book system going live just weeks before the event. Such was the demand, over 150 people on where on the reserve list!
He explained that the focus of the conference was on 'People Powered Change: A Festival of Ideas', drawing on the Housing LIN's core values - learning, improvement and networking.
To coincide with the conference the Housing LIN had published relevant new resources including a new case study report, Growing Older Together: An Overview of Collaborative Forms of Housing for Older People (opens new window), and a new viewpoint, Meeting lifestyle aspirations of older consumers (opens new window).
He went on to encourage delegates to share their ideas so that may lead to new partnerships, service improvements, exciting innovations or additional investment in the housing with care sector. And right on cue, he mentioned that on the eve of the conference, the Department of Health had announced the allocation of Phase Two of the Care and Support Specialised Housing Fund (opens new window).
He thanked each of the sponsors, explaining that without their generous support, the Housing LIN couldn't continue to offer free events. The headline sponsors were: Castleoak, Keepmoat, Legal & General and Willmott Dixon, along with the ExtraCare Charitable Trust, Housing & Care 21, Tunstall Healthcare, Elderly Accommodation Counsel, Faithful + Gould, The Guinness Partnership, PRP Architects, and solicitors, Winckworth Sherwood.
To find out what people said about the conference, check comments posted on twitter at #HLINconf2016.
Keynote Addresses
Shaun introduced the three morning keynote speakers were Anna Dixon (Centre for Ageing Better), John Galvin (Elderly Accommodation Counsel), and Tom McPhail (Hargeaves Lansdown).
Anna Dixon, Chief Executive of the Centre for Ageing Better (CAB) talked from personal experience and the views of older people in: Enjoy a good later life - why does where we live matter?
She was followed by John Galvin, Chief Executive of EAC, who spoke on the older people's housing market and the 'push/pull' factors for a downsizer or rightsizer move in later life in a presentation entitled: But should I stay or should I move?
And concluding the morning keynote session, Tom McPhail, Head of Pensions Research at Hargreaves Lansdown, covered the world of personal finance, pensions and wealth in a way that everyone could understand in: Pensions: what are they good for?
1st Panel Debate - Meeting the housing aspirations of older people
Knowledge & Innovation Sessions
- Click here for details 11 different sessions held before lunch
- Click here for details 11 different sessions held after lunch
2nd Panel Debate: Delivering the housing and services that older people want
Final Keynote Addresses
In the afternoon, Jeremy Porteus, founder and director of the Housing LIN chaired the final session. He welcomed Bruce Moore, Chief Executive of Housing & Care 21 and Dr Nicola Millard, Head of Customer Insight and Futures, at BT Technology
In his speech, Bruce Moore gave an entertaining and thought-provoking presentation on: Alternative perspectives - choices for later life
And lastly, Dr Nicola Millard, spoke about 3 U's and the internet of care things in Autonomous customers & super employes: the human factors shaping the future of work
Closing remarks
Jeremy reflected on the key themes emerging from the day around collaborative care, connected homes and communities and 'people powered' networked solutions. Aspects of all these were brought to the fore in all the keynote speeches, the knowledge and innovation sessions, the two panel debates and, in particular, contributions from those with the experience of older age living in retirement communities.
He also drew attention to some of the challenges facing the sector in relation to revenue funding and ensuring future viability; for example, whether as a result of welfare reform, local housing allowance, -1% rent increases and more austere local commissioning arrangements. He explained that the Housing LIN was working behind the scenes directly and indirectly with partners to influence government policy and thinking.
He highlighted a number of the other remarkable Housing LIN achievements throughout the year, nationally and regionally. Of note, the work:
- supporting the implementation of the Health and Housing Memorandum of Understanding and Action Plan (opens new window)
- with Public Health England to publish 2 briefings on active ageing and the built environment and end of life care at home (opens new window), and 2 further ones (forthcoming) on housing and alcohol related issues, and tackling health inequalities
- contributing to the recent Prime Minister's Challenge on Dementia Implementation Plan (opens new window) and actively participate in the Housing and Dementia Research Consortium (opens new window)
- supporting two important awards on housing for older people. The first, aimed at architects and designers reflects all that's best in designing to the HAPPI principles (opens new window), a category of the annual housing design awards. The second, EAC's Housing for Older People awards (opens new window)
- publishing the Extra Care Housing: State of the Nation (opens new window) report and working closely with the Welsh Government's expert group to help develop a housing for older people strategy for Wales that will come out later this year
- - with local authorities and provides on the Strategic Housing for Older People Analysis Tool (or SHOP@) and drawing on other expertise, we have undertaken several paid consultancy, training and mentoring activities
- and with our regional 'leads' and steering group members, working closely with our 40,000 members to tailor a number of regional events and also several leadership sets, for example, in the South West (opens new window)
He thanked and named all the sponsors for their generous support and pointed out that this enables the Housing LIN to organise this free event and celebrate all that's best in the sector. He thanked Shaun for chairing the morning's session and setting the right tone for the event. He very much hoped that this event will be the first of many to be held at the KIA Oval.
And finally, Jeremy concluded by thanking everyone for making the conference such a success and singled out Jerome Billeter, Suzanne, Lois, Viv and Hatty who have worked tirelessly behind the scenes.