News story

New guides launched to help improve health at home for older people

Free resources published aimed at the housing sector and improving end of life care.

An elderly lady sitting on a chair smiling

The Housing Learning and Improvement Network (Housing LIN), with support from Public Health England (PHE), has published 2 practical resources aimed at improving the housing sector’s contribution to the health and wellbeing of people with long term conditions and older people.

The free resources focus on improving end of life care and enabling the built environment to promote active ageing.

They contribute to the ambitions set out in the national housing and health memorandum of understanding and particularly explore the potential for joint working between local housing, care and support organisations and public health teams.

Dr Ann Marie Connolly, Deputy Director, Health Equity and Mental Health at PHE said:

Housing is a determinant of health, both mental and physical. These briefings provide great examples of how commissioners and providers from the health, social care, housing and environmental health sectors can be working together to create homes that promote health and ensure that older people are able to live healthy, independent lives.

Recent relevant work published with support from PHE on health and housing

Homes and ageing in England briefing paper

This paper uses English Housing Survey (EHS) data to provide an overview of the quality of homes occupied by older people and estimates the cost to the NHS in England of this poor housing.

HACT Standards in Evidence

New Standards to support the housing sector to generate better quality evidence of the effectiveness of housing and related community interventions in contributing to health, wellbeing and other local outcomes, launched by HACT with support from PHE.

Published 23 February 2016