Decent Homes for Ageing Well

In March 2020, Care & Repair England published a brochure highlighting the health benefits for older people that home improvements could deliver – while also cutting NHS costs and reducing the widening gaps in life expectancy and healthy life expectancy.

Decent Homes for Ageing Well is based on data analysis by BRE, which used the BRE Trust Full Cost of Poor Housing methodology. This brochure sets out the case for action to make existing homes better places to live and age well and calls for immediate action to improve non-decent homes lived in by older people, 78% of which are owner occupied.

It suggests that older people simply want to:

• Be safe, warm and independent.
• Live as part of their community.
• Stay actively involved with their family and friends.
• Age well at home.

But more than 2 million older people are living in non-decent homes, putting their health at risk and costing the NHS £1.4 billion a year.

Care & Repair England is an independent charitable organisation established in 1986 which aims to improve older people’s housing.

--BRE Group

[edit] Related articles on Designing Buildings

• BRE articles.
• Building Research Establishment.
• Decent homes standard.
• Homes and ageing in England.
• Quantifying the health benefits of the Decent Homes programme FB 64.
• The cost of poor housing to the NHS.
• The cost-benefit to the NHS arising from preventative housing interventions (FB82).
• The full cost of poor housing in Wales.
• The full cost of poor housing.
• The real cost of poor housing.