Supporting People services for Older People: Emerging Findings Report

This research by the Welsh Government explores the progress being made in response to the 2010 Aylward Review recommendation.

This review stated that access to older people's services (provided as part of Supporting People) should be based on need and not tenure.

It sought to explore how services are provided for older people through the 22 Supporting People administering authorities in Wales, assess whether housing-related support services have moved away from being tenure based to being based on need and what else could be done to effectively promote such an approach.

Of note, it found that just over half of the service provision (52 per cent) was within sheltered housing schemes and just under a third (31 per cent) within housing allocated to older persons, indicating that a large majority of services were provided to social housing tenants. A small number of services were provided only in 'community' settings.

In addition, within the schemes, a majority of the alarm provision (75 per cent) was hardwired, while 23 per cent of provision was in the form of Lifeline alarms.

Across Wales, the large majority of units of support (74 per cent) were commissioned by local authorities as 'fixed' support (connected to accommodation), with the remainder commissioned as 'floating' support (non-accommodation-based), often to older tenants in general needs social housing rather than older homeowners.