Private Sector Housing Improvement in the UK and the Chronically Ill: Implications for Collaborative Working

Abstract

The principal thrust of the UK ‘Supporting People’ (SP) programme is concerned with packages of long-term support for older and disabled people, but there is concern that in spite of its declared aims, owner-occupiers may miss out. A recent study has identified a substantial group of poor owner-occupiers, who suffer from chronic illness but currently receive little in the way of housing or health support.

1 Limiting Long Term Illness – the only health-related question in the 1991 Census of Great Britain.

Aimed at people who have serious coronary disease, the ‘Housing for Healthier Hearts’ project in Bradford has shown that a short-term task-centred programme of intervention and support by housing and health workers – focusing on immediate health-care concerns and specific housing improvement – can make a rapid and substantial difference to health and quality of life and the ability of residents to retain independence. Nevertheless there was concern that multi-agency participation – prominent at policy level, and crucial to the success of the SP programme – proved far more difficult to effect at ‘grass roots’. The article concludes with an analysis of the issues, and barriers, affecting collaborative working between housing and health agencies, and suggests some strategies for developing good practice.

Keywords:

• Housing improvement
• health impact
• collaborative working

Notes

1 Limiting Long Term Illness – the only health-related question in the 1991 Census of Great Britain.

2 It has been suggested that since questionnaires would be issued at different times of the year there might be a possible ‘seasonal variation’ in response to questions about health perception. A substantial research exercise by Bennett et al. (1995) found that this was not a significant factor.

3 Short-form 36 is ‘the most widely used health status questionnaire in the world … [which] is psychometrically sound and readily available and well documented’ (Ware et al., 2001, p. 6 ).