Housing for Varying Needs Review - Aberdeen City Council

NeedsHousing for Varying Needs Review3. Strategic context3.1 Sheltered and very sheltered housing provide part of a wide spectrum ofaccommodation options for people in need of care and support. Over thelast few years there has been a strong national policy trend to moveaway from some of the more institutional types of care setting, forexample nursing homes or long stay hospital beds, to services availableto support people in their own homes.3.2 The Scottish Government's key policy priority is to support people toremain at home for as long as possible, rather than in care homes orhospital settings. This is known as 'shifting the balance of care'. It isreflected in the national indicator to increase the percentage of peopleaged 65 and over with high levels of care needs who are cared for athome.3.3 In Scotland, 90% of older people live in mainstream accommodation, 5%in care homes and 5% in some form of specialist housing. This isbroadly similar to the profiles in Aberdeen with only 7% of older peopleliving in specialist housing such as sheltered or very sheltered housingas illustrated in Figure 1 below:Figure 1: Living arrangements of older people in AberdeenSource: Census 20013.4 In order to consider options for the future strategic direction of housingfor older people, it is important to try to map out needs. It should benoted that there is actually very little in the way of reliable methodologyto allow this needs projection to be made accurately. In 1997, TheScottish Office published guidance on the prevalence method ofestimating housing and community care needs within a population. Thiswas used in the preparation of the HNDA.7