Good Relations has helped set up a new trade body which will represent the UK’s five big players in the retirement village sector.
The term ‘retirement villages’ covers a package of property, lifestyle and extra-healthcare and the concept is huge in the United States with more than a million people living in them but it is only just beginning to take off here.
The trade body, the Association of Retirement Village Operators UK (ARVO UK) has been established to enhance the professionalism of an industry which is attracting growing interest at a time when housing, health and care are becoming more independent in a rapidly ageing society.
ARVO UK will establish and promote a professional code of practice, a quality threshold to act as a stamp of excellence for customers.
Good Relations role has been to co-ordinate the formation of the association and help define its objectives. ARVO UK Chair Nick Sanderson said: “ Our first challenge is to remove confusion and ambiguity from an industry that suffers from blurred boundaries and a lack of definition, the legacy of having grown up in the absence of a UK template.
“The Retirement Village model of ‘supported independence’ integrates three core components: housing, social support networks, and access to care, all provided by long-term owners and operators and managers. It recognises that the key determinant of quality of life at any age is social connection. It is fundamentally different from developer models of so called ‘retirement housing’ which have no ongoing commitment for service provision,” Sanderson explains.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics, show that for the first time in history there are more people over the age of 65 than of school age in the UK; soon 25 percent of the population will be over retirement age. The milestone, which follows years of rising life expectancy thanks to improvements in lifestyle and healthcare, has been described as a “wake-up-call” by experts who predict unsustainable pressures on housing, health and social care services. This demographic shift has wider implications, with the ‘baby boomer’ generation already reshaping the notion of retirement.
Founder members of ARVOUK are:
- Gavin Aleksich, Managing Director, Renaissance LifeCare Plc
- Keith Cockell, Deputy Chairman, Richmond Villages
- Hudson Cooper, Chairman, Care Village UK Ltd
- Jon Gooding, Managing Director, Retirement Villages Services
- Nick Sanderson, Chief Executive, Raven Audley Court Plc
Good Relations Media and Strategy Director, Malcolm Munro, explained. “Our role with ARVO UK has been across the spectrum of communications from PR and Public Affairs to stakeholder engagement. It is a growth area and is a fascinating communications challenge. Not only is the population getting older, it is also for the most part getting more affluent with higher aspirations. Retired people are a huge consumer group - in the States they call them “Grey Panthers” - and the UK is slowing waking up to their importance as a target for PR and Marketing”
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Notes to editors
Nick Sanderson, Chairman of ARVOUK, is available for media interviews.
For further information on ARVOUK or to arrange an interview with Nick Sanderson, please contact:
[1] About ARVOUK
Images and biographies of ARVOUK’s Founder Members are available on request. www.arvouk.org
[2] About Retirement Villages
A UK Retirement Village integrates three core components, all provided by long-term owners and operators and managers:
I. A property which allows people to enjoy the comfort, rights, security and privacy that comes with having “their own front door”
II. Access to flexible care and support tailored to meet individual and changing needs over time
III. Social support networks in an empowering environment, promoting choice, independence, social connection and well-being.
This integrated model of “supported independence” – supporting people to the highest level of independence they can achieve – coupled with a significant focus on the social context, sets UK Retirement Villages apart from:
- Traditional, institutional models of care; and
- Developer models of so called “retirement housing”.
Neither of the above meet the evolving needs, expectations and aspirations of a new, more independent generation of older people, rightly more demanding of quality of life.
[3] The UK’s ageing population*
• Over the course of the last Century, the number of people aged 65+ in the UK rose from 1.7 million to over 11.2 million
• By 2041, the composition of the UK population will have changed dramatically:
- Over the next 30 years, the 65+ age group is set to rise from 9.7 million to 17 million, an increase of 76 percent
- The number of people aged 75+ is expected to grow by 95 percent, from 4.4 million to 9 million
- The 85+ age group is likely to rise 184 percent, to 3.5 million.
[4] Unsustainable pressures on housing, health and social care services*
Housing
• Older households, where the main householder is over 65, will make up almost half (48 percent) of household growth by 2026, resulting in an additional 2.4 million older households in England than there are today.
• They are more likely to be classified as “under-occupiers”, i.e. their homes could accommodate more people than currently live there, creating a “bottleneck” in the family housing market. [UK Retirement Villages encourage older people to, if they chose, move out of under-occupied family homes, with the impact felt across the entire housing market.
Care
• If the current housing situation is unaddressed, places in care homes and hospitals would need to rise by 51 percent, from around 450,000 to more than 1.1 million by 2051.
• Some estimates project long-term social care expenditure would need to increase by 325 percent in real terms between 2002 and 2041.
*Source: Lifetime Homes, Lifetime Neighbourhoods: Communities and Local Government, February 2008.
