Minister Helen Whately says keeping residents safe has been “phenomenal achievement”
The government has praised the role of retirement housebuilders during the coronavirus crisis in helping to ensure that residents are supported and that communities haven’t become disease hotspots.
Care minister Helen Whately (pictured, right) wrote to retirement and extra care housing providers on Monday to say thank-you for the work they have been doing to protect residents. She said: “Retirement and extra care housing developments across the country - whatever their size, or whether private or not-for-profit – are playing a vital role in protecting the most vulnerable in our country.
She said: “To ensure that all the people in your care remain safe, healthy, and comforted as our normal ways of life have been put on hold is a phenomenal achievement. It will be a joy to those in your care and to their families too.
In response the Home Builders’ Federation (HBF) said retirement communities “have proved to be a good place to support older people during this challenging time, with a very limited number of confirmed cases of covid -19 to date within developments.”
The trade body said examples of support provided by private retirement housing providers included McCarthy & Stone (project pictured left), which had set up a “buddy” system staffed mostly by construction workers, on top of its usual 1,600-strong services team, charged with ensuring vulnerable customers have the supplies and any other support they need.
Churchill Retirement has also teamed up with a national wholesaler to ensure self-isolating residents have access to vital supplies.
John Slaughter, chair of the HBF’s Retirement Home Builders Group, said the letter was a much appreciated recognition of the important role that retirement and extra care homes were undertaking in “enabling potentially vulnerable older people to manage the challenges posed by the covid-19 pandemic.”
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