Triple benefits of Integrated Retirement Communities

Retirement villages can deliver benefits for residents, for society and for the economy, delegates heard at Real Asset Media’s SHHA in-depth: Best practice from the UK – Integrated Retirement Communities (IRCs) webinar, which took place online yesterday.

“The IRC model sits in the middle between retirement housing and care homes”, said Michael Voges, Executive Director, ARCO (Associated Retirement Community Operators). “There’s very little provision for people who need little or intermittent care”.

Integrated Retirement Communities are self-contained homes for sale, shared ownership or rent, that offer 24-hour onsite staff with optional care and domestic services available on demand, as well as a range of facilities like a restaurant, communal lounges, gardens, a hairdresser, a gym and a swimming pool.

The sector is still very small in the UK: around 75,000 people live in housing with care units, compared to around 1 million beds available in care homes or sheltered and retirement housing units. In the UK it is 0.6% of the population over 65, compared to 6.1% in the United States and 5.4% in New Zealand.

“Provision clearly still lags behind other countries, but the market is growing”, said Voges. “IRCs are also attracting the majority of investment, so growth is likely to continue, particularly in mid-market and high-end, both rental and for sale”.

The demographic push is clear: in the next thirty years the number of over-75s – the average age at which people move into IRCs – in the UK will double.

“Our vision is to provide for 250,000 people by 2030”, said Voges. “In achieving this our sector’s turnover will be over £70 billion until 2030 and we’ll need to invest £40 billion”.

ARCO has calculated that reaching this goal will deliver £5.6 billion of savings for the UK’s health and social system by 2030.

“NHS costs are reduced by 38%, as people spend less time in hospital and they are released early, as they can receive care”, Voges said. “This chimes with the pressing issue of reducing the strain on the NHS”.

Another positive outcome will be releasing over 562,500 bedrooms into the general housing market. “As older people move to IRCs they free up their homes which are often large and under-occupied, that can become homes for young people and families”, he said. “Given the housing shortage in the UK, it is a way of giving more options to everyone”.

The development of more IRCs could therefore not just provide pleasant homes for older people in a supportive community context, but could also relieve some of the pressure on the NHS and provide more homes for young families. For these reasons, said Voges, “there is strong political support for this model”.