Paul Nash and Vanessa Burholt of the Centre for Innovative Ageing at Swansea University presented new research on extra care housing at this week’s British Society of Gerontology conference. Based on their study of residents in extra care housing, residential care facilities, and people receiving community care, they presented findings on incidences of frailty in extra care schemes, and the impact of extra care on the social resources of widowhood.

First, Paul Nash’s presentation on frailty. He demonstrated that, generally speaking, extra care schemes are home to more cognitively and physically fit older people. This led to the argument that extra care tends to be most appropriate for those with moderate care needs. Of course, it would be unfair to conclude that extra care providers claim to cater adequately for people with higher care needs. Furthermore, what remains unknown is whether extra care prevents or delays the onset of frailty. 

Second, Vanessa Burholt’s presentation on widowhood. Using quantitative techniques, Burholt found that residents of extra care housing have significantly greater social resources than other forms of care settings. Widows, in particular, are better off in extra care housing – extra care has a ‘mediating effect’ on the impact of widowhood on social resources. 

However, a qualitative inquiry indicated that while extra care helps to reduce isolation, it does not necessarily reduce loneliness. Relationships formed in extra care housing are frequent, but not necessarily intimate – there is a difference between friendship and friendliness. Again, it would not be fair to suggest that extra care schemes claim to definitively combat loneliness. Yet Burholt is surely right to argue that all care settings should enable people to maintain existing relationships as well as develop new ones. 

Craig Berry