Optimising care delivery models to support ageing-in-place: towards autonomy, affordability and financial sustainability (Odessa)

The study will seek to investigate current long-term care delivery models for older people by exploring the relationships between their living arrangements and living environment, and the design of care delivery from technological, financial, political and social perspectives. Specifically, it will attempt:

1) To explore housing choices, needs, and preferences of older people in ageing, and to acknowledge the importance of housing and living conditions and their links to social and health care delivery and in prompting ageing-in-place.

2) To assess older people’s housing choices as expressed by residential mobility and their ability to improve their housing conditions and meet their needs in terms of housing ownership and mobility.

3) With reference to the different policy contexts of the three partner countries, assess the potential for engaging communities in effective and inclusive models of social care delivery to support healthy ageing.

4) To propose design alternatives for age-friendly housing environments that support ageing-in-place, independence and enable effective, inclusive and easily accessible health and social care for older people.

5) To assess the efficiency and affordability of financial innovations for the long-term living arrangements of older people and propose delivery for an ageing population through development of funding options and associated proposals.

6) To build a common framework for health and social care delivery mechanisms and housing options through scenario building and in-depth comparative analyses between the three partner countries.

It is the aim of this research to translate its findings as quickly as possible. This activity of translating research into action is something which the project team has rich experience in undertaking, as evidenced through projects such as Bridging Research in Ageing and ICT Development - BRAID, Assessing Needs of Care in European Nations - ANCIEN, Survey on Old People of Tsinghua, Development and Social Significance of Facilities for The Elderly, Understanding the Diversity of PPP Practices around the World, and networks such as Cogworks, Housing LIN and the EU-Asia Network of Competence Enhancement on Public-Private Partnerships. It is anticipated that the results of this research will benefit a number of organisations and stakeholders outlined as follows:

A range of guidelines will be produced by the research detailing how the built environment relating to housing design should be adapted, in addition to social and health care delivery guidelines, to meet the needs of older people and their families, and sustainable mechanisms to afford age-friendly housing. This information will be of direct benefit to policy makers, social and health care and housing providers who are in the position to modify and update policy recommendations relating to programmes of care delivery and design of homes and their affordability. In addition to policy makers, the recommendations produced will be of direct benefit to practitioners. Practitioners will use evidence generated by the project to inform the future planning, design, construction and management of home settings. Older people who have a good appreciation of ability to understand the value of good design of the built environment and, in particular, affordability and accessibility to decent housing will be in the position to impact further on the study through providing their future engagement and opinion. Their feedback and comments will be invaluable in terms of being able to influence policy and practice having evidence-based research at hand.

Through the subsequent change in both the domestic environment and in how social and health care is both managed and delivered within it, older people who desire to age-in-place will benefit through an improved living experience in terms of an environment that better meets their needs and promotes and improves their quality of life. They will have access to home settings that are more inclusive and that are able to facilitate increased mobility, autonomy and physical activity.

The project will create in a locality within each country setting, a replicable process of community engagement for understanding, through experiential account and social network datasets, the effect of formal and informal network connections of the local older population. This will provide a basis for demonstrating the value of network oriented social care models as part of a framework of social care development and a way of enabling the impact for of the project's wider activity on participants to be captured and to complement testimonials and other forms of feedback from the stakeholders and user associations involved with the research - all of whom will be provided with the opportunity to comment on the study's findings and recommendations.

As a result of the adoption of the study findings, older people will have access to a supportive environment that will facilitate a personalised care delivery, improved mobility and enhanced participation in social and physical activity. As a direct result, it is anticipated that carer burden will be reduced.

Researchers and academics within the study will benefit through their development of increased levels of multidisciplinary knowledge and the creation of a shared language through their involvement with the multidisciplinary work plan within the research. The working structure of the research project will provide an opportunity for those from all domains within the study to work together and hence gain a further insight into a number of new areas of work and multicultural awareness.

The Odessa team host Technology and Housing Design to Support ‘Ageing in Place’ workshop at UCLan:

On Monday 14th March 2016, Professors and representatives from UK based research projects were invited to speak to guests at the first Odessa Ageing in Place workshop.
After an introduction by Professor Karim Hadjri and presentation introducing our work on the Odessa Project, we were delighted to hear from:

• Prof Christopher Nugent from the University of Ulster on ‘Technology adoption models for persons with dementia’
• Dr Judith Torrington from the University of Sheffield on ‘How well does mainstream housing support people ageing in place?’
• Dr Sarah Barnes from the University of Sheffield about ‘EVOLVE: Development of a tool to evaluate the design of housing for older people’
• Dr Una Lynch from Sonrisa Solutions in Northern Ireland about ‘Ageing with dignity: the contribution of technology and housing design’
• Prof Alison Bowes from the University of Stirling on ‘Supporting people with dementia at home: reflections on what works’

Odessa project’s second International Team Meeting:

The second project team meeting took place on Saturday 16 April at Tsinghua University, Beijing. During the morning session, the team reviewed progress of work for each work package for the project, discussed project management and operational issues. During the afternoon, the team explored how the various work packages will inform the development of scenarios for sustainable care delivery models.

Housing Technology Research – focus groups in Beijing

As part of the work package exploring housing design and technology supporting ageing, three exploratory focus groups were organised to gather views and feedback on accessible design, issues with sensory and cognitive impairments, and the use of assistive technology for telehealth and telecare.

Focus Group 1:

12 retired professors took part in the first focus group held at the School of Architecture, Tsinghua University.

Focus Group 2:

14 participants representing 3 generations took part in the second focus group held at the School of Architecture, Tsinghua University.

Focus Group 3:

15 older people from the Chaoyang Minjin Committee from Beijing took part in the third focus group held at Beijing Union University.

Visits to care homes:

Three locations were visited in order to understand care needs driving the design of care homes in Beijing; care home types; use of assistive technology; best practice.

Venues visited were:

• Jin Shou Zhang Care Centre
• Chenghe Jing (CHJ) Care/Merryshine Care Centre (Yi Zhuang)
• Aozhou Kang Du Community - Chenghe Jing (CHJ) Care Centre (Wangjing)

Tsinghua University ‘Global Ageing’ Symposium:

A research symposium on global ageing was held at Tsinghua University on Sunday 17 April. Speakers included researchers from the Odessa project and invited guests from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Paris School of Economics, and Naidao Research Centre.

UK team visit to Visit to China International Health Industry Expo:

The project team visited the China International Health Industry Expo held in Beijing during 14 to 16 April 2016.

The latest technology on smart homes and connected health was on display.

Connected Communities visit to Ningbo:

David Morris and Manjit Bola visited Ningbo in southern China’s Zhejiang province to speak at a meeting hosted by the Lead for older people’s services. David presented to government officials and older people from the community on the Connected Communities study and the proposal to use the approach to understand the role and potential of community networks in Ningbo as part of the Odessa programme.

David, Manjit, and Professor Pei from Tsinghua University then visited two local communities’ centres in Ningbo. Great enthusiasm was expressed for the scope for understanding the value of connectivity embodied in work with older people which in Ningbo is concerned with local inter-generational voluntary support matched to person and need and with forms of continuing life-long learning opportunities.

This research complements the work undertaken by UCLan on age-friendly environments, ageing-in-place, and alternative financial modelling for service and facilities provision; at Tsinghua on age consumption and PPP financial model, and at Université Paris-Dauphine and Université Sorbonne on the determinants of the residential mobility of older people – recent work is focussed on China and Hong Kong. It will also expand the research undertaken at Geographie-Cités on the ‘financialisation’ of building production and its geographic/social impact.The project is co-funded by ESRC (UK), ANR (France) and NSFC (China). The lead institutions in each country are respectively University of Central Lancashire (UCLan); Tsinghua University; Université Paris Dauphine.

The research team composed of:

University of Central Lancashire:

• Professor Karim Hadjri, project coordinator
• Professor David Morris
• Professor Akintola Akintoye
• Dr Jez Buffin
• Dr Tulika Gadakari
• Dr Manjit Bola
  
• Jingjing Wang

Tsinghua University, China:

• Dr Zan Yang
• Professor Hongyu Liu
• Professor Xiaomei Pei
• Associate Professor Lei Shao
• Professor Shouqing WangProfessor Xiaoqing Cheng
• Dr Lu Zheng
• Ying Fan
• Cindy Cheung
• Yenping Lin
• HuaXi Zhang

Université Paris Dauphine, France:

Leader: EDA-LEGOS, Marie-Eve Joel

IRISSO (CNRS/ Dauphine)

• François Cusin
• Hugo Lefebvre
• Dominique Mahut
• Thomas Sigaud
• Elise Penalva
• Elise Tenret

INSEE,/Dauphine:

Anne Laferrère

Franche Comté University:

Guillaume Jehannin

LAVUE (CNRS/Université Paris Ouest Nanterre)

Lydie Launay

Paris I -Panthéon Sorbonne university

Leader: Géographie-cités Natacha Aveline

Geographie-cités (CNRS/university Paris 1)

• Stephane Quancard
• Coline Meunier
• Jihoon Lee

Oxford University

Sylvie Dubuc

Naidao Research Center (China)

• Emmanuel Breffeil
• Christian Breuil
• Julien Dreyfuss