The final report of the Older People’s Housing Taskforce, for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and Department of Health and Social Care has now been published, after 12 months of engagement with stakeholders and older people and their families across a wide spectrum of the retirement and later living sector.

Chair of the Report, Professor Julienne Meyer CBE led the task force. The report contains 9 core recommendations which set out detailed actions which, if followed, should have a lasting impact across the older persons housing sector.

Most importantly, Professor Meyer acknowledges that ‘to truly make good on our ambition, a further transformational step change is required’.

For that reason, we make our tenth and overarching recommendation – that the government establish a new delivery capability to carry this transformative work forward.’

The ARHM was pleased to be involved with this important piece of work through our colleagues at the Retirement Housing Group, notably in relation to the work around the need for greater consumer protection in the sector.

We are optimistic to read the recommendations and agree wholeheartedly that the report’s 10th recommendation is the key to change across the sector. The worrying statistics about the increase in the older population have been played out for far too long without any real appetite to change the narrative. We hope that the Government accept the recommendations of the report and will support them in full to enable the transformation to happen for older peoples housing. We are very happy to work with the Housing Minister and his colleagues at the Ministry to support the work in order to make the recommendations become a reality.