Age concern

RETIREMENT villages enable older people to enjoy independent and active lives while easing pressures on health services.

On-site care and support in schemes like New Earswick's pioneering retirement community can lead to fewer hospital admissions and promote earlier discharge, generating cost savings for acute hospital trusts.

Hartrigg Oaks - the UK's first Continuing Care Retirement Community - was developed by the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust and opened in 1999.

It has 152 bungalows, a 42-bed residential care home, a caf, restaurant, library, arts and crafts rooms and a fitness suite.

It offers people, aged at least 60, their own home which is specially designed for later life with 24-hour care, along with opportunities to make friends and lead an active life.

The study by Karen Croucher, research fellow at the Centre for Housing Policy, University of York, also found that retirement villages benefited communities by providing jobs and supporting shops and facilities.

They help health and social care providers to deliver their services more efficiently, and also ease housing shortages.

Older people who move into homes specially developed for them, also free up family homes which were previously under-occupied.

John Kennedy, director of care services, said Hartrigg Oaks remained unique in how it was financed.

People pay a fee, which in part covers the grounds maintenance and upkeep of their homes, as well as a contribution towards their care needs.

"They pay whether they need care or not," he said.

That monthly fee does not increase if and when residents do need extra support.

By living at Hartrigg Oaks, residents are choosing to cap the financial burden of any long-term care, and deciding in advance where they will receive care and who will provide it.

"It's about making the decisions early on when you are able to do it as opposed to leaving it until a crisis occurs," he said.

However, Hartrigg Oaks is not about immediate care. Residents must be reasonably fit and well to live there.

A big focus is on providing the "lower level services" such as keeping homes and gardens trim.

"People worry about not being able to do the garden," said Mr Kennedy. "It gets them down. If they get down, they get depressed and isolated, and don't eat properly and don't take their medication. Then they need care. That's where a village can work.

"If we can provide these lower level services with good economies of scale then we can give people their independence for longer."

Karen Croucher said: "The study shows that retirement villages have great potential to expand the choices of living arrangements for older people as well as having benefits not just confined to those who live there. "But perhaps the strongest messages are from the residents of retirement villages themselves as studies consistently show high levels of satisfaction with the combination of independence, security, support and companionship that the schemes offer."

'When we need care it is here, provided by the people we already know in a setting we already know' - Tony Dale

"IT IS not an old people's place - it is about growing old comfortably with the security of care," said Janet Dale, while watching her granddaughter, Holly, playing.

The retired nurse and her husband, Tony, were among the first to sign up for a bungalow at York's retirement village when it was just an architect's drawing.

Eight years later, they are still content at Hartrigg Oaks, in New Earswick.

Tony, 77, who worked in university administration, said they were attracted to the village, largely because the Joseph Rowntree Foundation was behind the pioneering scheme.

"We knew they were not going to disappear overnight," he said. "We were the second to get our names down to come here.

"We are delighted with the place particularly with the knowledge that when we need care it is here, provided by the people we already know in a setting we already know.

"The majority of us are paying sums of money now which will remain exactly the same when we receive full-time nursing care.

"At the moment, we pay quite a lot and don't in that sense get much back for it. But we know that if either or both or us need full-time care we will get that while paying the same amount."

Janet, who is 72, was quick to address misconceptions about retirement villages, highlighting the diverse range of activities that take place at Hartrigg Oaks and further afield.

"It is not insular or inward looking. We are not gated in or a closed community in any way," she stressed.

"There's a lot going on to stimulate. We frequently go into York. There are quite a few Quakers here who go to the Meeting House in the village, while others go to Joseph Rowntree School to do things."

"We looked after both our mothers who died with us. I have no wish to do that to our children, or for them to feel the responsibility.

"This is not an old people's place. It is about growing old comfortably. It is independent living. If you need help you ask for it, but it isn't pushed on you.

"I am quite sure it saves the health service a lot of money because there's no bed blocking."

She said residents could leave hospital safe in the knowledge they would be well cared for on returning home.

Updated: 09:53 Monday, April 17, 2006