Innovating to improve care

A summary of WJ Law’s pilot scheme – the Pavilions – which offers older people to chance to rent a high quality dwelling rather than selling their homes for care.

How’s your mum? WJ Law are developing a long-term innovative solution for housing and care for older people with a solution which is affordable, offers sheltered housing outside of the social housing arena, and which will be attractive to each of our parents when they will need a little help and support. WJ Law recognise that sooner or later “mum will need a little assistance in helping dad.”

The care model is called the Pavilions, and the pilot is contained within the Ballantine Garden Village scheme in Lisburn. Ballantine also incorporates 450 homes, shops, offices, and a convenience store and care home.

The Pavilions provide a new means of elderly care in the home environment, and represent a fundamental shift in housing and care for the elderly from a predominantly top-down, state-provided, and dad-only focused model. At the Pavilions the focus is on empowerment, choice, bottom-up solutions, and is a solution which considers the needs of mum as well as dad.

The Pavilions homes are purpose built for the elderly, and are an environment

of community, friendship and independence, but importantly with 24-hour on-hand support. Also at The Pavilions, the elderly need not sell their family homes to finance their supported living; instead they have the flexibility of renting. A model of private supported living in such a setting makes the Pavilions unique.

Northern Ireland’s population is the fastest growing in the UK and is also increasingly ageing. Seventy per cent of pensioners in Northern Ireland are also home-owners who are not generally eligible for social housing supported living solutions nor eligible for government-paid institutional care. Care homes operated by the private sector (averaging some £600 per week) are not a widely affordable alternative. The status quo is a mixture of state interventions, a division of the family unit, care home closures, and the elderly facing being forced to the sell the family home to pay for care.

‘Transforming Your Care’ proposes a reduction in statutory residential care homes but without significant alternative provision, no alternative has existed for elderly home-owning families, and no alternative exists for both mum and dad.

The Pavilions is replicable across Northern Ireland and beyond. It encompasses supported living for people aged 65+ who do not have acute 24-hour nursing needs but who would benefit from the independence possible through supported living, company, and the 24-hour concierge service. WJ Law is in discussions with private equity and government to secure the completion of the pilot, since the savings to the Health and Social Care Board are expected to be highly significant.

The homes are unique in that they are built with advanced physical features included at the design stage, including unobtrusive measures as recommended by the University of Stirling’s Dementia Centre. Smart technology is built in and family members can monitor the level of support through the Pavilion app.

Residents may rent their current home for a sum similar to The Pavilions rental. On top of this, they would pay for the concierge service. Residents’ attendance allowance can contribute to the costs of this service.

Enabling people to live independently for as long as possible and a move away from over-reliance on residential and nursing care is central to government policy on care for the elderly in Northern Ireland. This model of supported living provides an innovative solution to these challenges, by offering additional choice, in terms of housing and associated care solutions for the elderly, in a high quality physical environment. The Pavilions is a solution of community, empowerment and supported living outside of the social sector. The Pavilions is a solution for each of our mums and dads.

WJ Law & Co LLP

Rosevale House

171 Moira Road

Lisburn, BT28 1RW

Tel: 028 9267 7317

Web: www.wjlaw.co.uk/pavilions