Hi Nury, I agree with the IET’s report on “Smart Homes for Healthier Ageing” that smart technology can benefit the elderly in various ways. One of the ideas that I find particularly appealing is the use of voice-controlled devices such as Alexa or equivalent speakers in each room of the home. This would enable the elderly to control various aspects of their environment from the comfort of their chair, such as lights, blinds, TV, radio, etc. This would not only enhance their convenience and comfort, but also their safety and independence. For example, they could easily adjust the lighting to suit their needs, or call for help in case of an emergency. Moreover, voice-controlled devices can also provide entertainment, information, and social interaction for the elderly, which can improve their mental health and well-being. According to a study by [The University of Manchester], voice-controlled devices can reduce loneliness and isolation among older adults by offering companionship and stimulation. Therefore, I believe that smart technology can play a significant role in promoting healthy ageing and improving the quality of life for the elderly.

There are people living in purpose built sheltered housing owned and operated by Housing Associations who are having to self fund removing baths and installing accessible showers and baths, so they can live decently.

So I cannot see where funding for these projects is going to come from if financial help is not even available for people who are struggling with simply keeping themselves clean.

Will everything have to be self funded?

It a bit of a specialist subject for me, having been working for three different walk in bath companies over the last six years literally all across England and Wales in all types of homes for customers of every race, creed and colour, I have worked in multimillion pound homes with both indoor and outdoor swimming pools, tennis courts, jetties to moor boats, right through to the other end of the scale homes that genuinely have compacted soil floors in some rooms, having been a farm building that has been partially converted into residential housing that is let to tenants, who were paying to replace the bathroom themselves with new laminated flooring being laid on the soil floor.

The differences in the standard of living between people in this age range is immense.

There is not much I don’t know about how people in this age range live and what their homes are like, indeed I am within the age range myself now, however I started the survey and abandoned it, I cannot determine what it is supposed to achieve and what would be a relevant answer.

Nury Moreira said:

the taskforce will primarily concentrate on specialised and supported housing solutions, specially tailored for middle-income elderly individuals

So what is that type of housing? Is it McCarthy Stone type retirement complexes?

www.mccarthyandstone.co.uk

What income do middle-income elderly individuals have? Is is the joint household income for a couple or the income for an individual living alone?

https://ifs.org.uk/tools_and_resources/where_do_you_fit_in#tool-results-section

I am not seeing the purpose and objectives of this study.

Well that link you provided suggests that the typical after tax income of someone in work is around £600 per week. I suspect for those retired however it will drop to a lot less - I reckon that could be between a quarter and a third of that 'at work' income, that sort of less -at least based on my own pension forecasts - and I will reach state retirement age in about a decade, 

The problem is as alluded, the income is not there for those that probably need it most.

Based on my own aging parents who are not exactly afraid of technology, the big stuff is things like getting up and down stairs, downstairs toilets, chairs you can get out of without help etc, not the glamorous hi tech at all, however these are the real issues to be addressed, then not being able to see or hear as well as before, so nothing less than about 18 point text is any good.

And something like an Alexa is no use at all until you can say ' make my lunch for me please, and then fetch the tablets off the sideboard, or they may be in the kitchen - but you know-   the red ones, and where the blazes are my reading glasses?' and get the same service as a real human would provide. Could an alexa be programmed to follow and translate or better to act on post-stroke speech perhaps? That would be quite hard, given that folk who are not friends and family - and so usually recognize what is being said, struggle,

For some folk the whole day expands to be filled with domestic things like getting food ready, washing up, washing laundry, and as Andy has already alluded, the whole bath time regime.  There are a whole load of folk living with bad knees, bad eyesight and various aches and pains and fading memory issues that mean that the  low tech 'normal stuff' is very slow  That is where the help is needed.

Mike

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Mike

As one of the elderly who has spent most of my working life working with technology in one form for or another  (I wrote my first computer program in 1968) I feel qualified to offer some comments.Sorry if they appear a bit disjointed and apparently off topic  but the problem is so wide reaching I would otherwise have to write an essay on it. 

While technology may provide some solutions I do not believe it is the answer. 

Firstly is any technological solution going to be available 24 hours per day 365 days a year. I have had two different 12 hr power cuts in the last 12 months and a day with no water supply. The Google box decided it would not respond having worked for a few months, turning it off and on did nothing. Leaving it off for a week incentivised it to work when turned back on. Given the number of relatively  new electronic devices I have repaired/scrapped over the last few years I have little faith in 

My wife has various issues which make a bungalow a necessity and fortunately we already have one. However it is quite large with nearly an acre of garden so downsizing would be a good idea but bungalows are at a premium. As we live in a small village of 250 homes there are not a lot of bungalows and none for sale so we would need to move away to downsize so loosing touch with local friends and activities.

Locally (at parish level) we have done a housing needs survey which identified a need for two bungalows but the local planning department have dictated that the only brown field site in the village cannot have market value housing on it  as it is in green belt and is more than 10 minutes walk from the local service centre (Large village with shops). So the site has to be developed for affordable housing, they have already given planning permission for approx 100 affordable houses within the parish (closer to the service centre) but no bungalows. (it is about 15 minutes from the shops in the service centre) So despite a need for bungalows they will only allow one and two bedroom affordable two story flats/houses to be built despite no local need.

I have had relatives buy into retirement home complexes but they are very restrictive, expensive and difficult to sell when the inevitable happens and do not suit everyone.

Then there is affordability, the housing needs survey mentioned above also identified that affordable houses are not affordable to someone on an average wage, never mind a pensioner who's private pension was decimated by the changes to tax on pension funds and the subsequent withdrawal of many players from the industry. With none of the pensions keeping up with Council tax, utility bills, insurance, etc increases everything becomes less affordable

WhIle I may appear a one off I know many in similar circumstances. Two friends had their company pensions taken over by the Pension Protection fund following the demise of Carrillion and they do not get all the benefits they were originally entitled to. Others had their pensions transferred to zombie companies. 

When coupled with the responses from Sparkingchip and Mike I feel that the answer is not technology but a much wider social problem where we are seen as a problem to be pushed aside when most of us have contributed  over 30% of our annual income to the state each year for nearly  50 years and we are now seen as a burden. 

I should add I am not on the breadline yet having reasonable assets but I am not sure I will be passing much on to my children.

Kevin 

They are defining “older people” as fifty five and over, so the housing is available to people from the age of fifty five to over a hundred years of age.  www.gov.uk/.../taskforce-to-transform-older-peoples-housing-underway

So, this is multi-generational housing, I moved my father into Housing Association sheltered flats after my mother died and there was someone living in the same corridor as their parents. In theory you could have three generations of the same family living in the same buildings, when I was working doing electrical and building maintenance for a Housing Association contractor there were three generations living in the same building in different flats as well as the extended family, aunts, uncles and cousins.

So the age range of the tenants could be fifty tears or more, as I saw in the flats where my father lived.

Also, anyone who is fifty five now can be expecting to work until their state pension age of sixty seven in 2035, being twelve years off their state pension age.  www.gov.uk/state-pension-age
So again,  there can and will be people living in sheltered retirement housing who will get up and go to work daily, as I saw in the Housing Association flats where my father lived. 

The advantage of having these younger working people about is they should be able to assist those neighbours who are less able, but they may not be prepared to do so, however they may not be able to attend coffee mornings and participate in other communal events, assuming that they are still being organised now that funding is not available for tenants in receipt of housing benefits to cover them.

Housing benefits being another issue, the Housing Associations have withdrawn communal facilities and staff who supported tenants, because those claiming payments pay their rent only get that, the benefit payments no longer cover the additional charge for communal facilities and support staff, so there’s no longer anyone on site to respond to the emergency call alarms or investigate why the fire alarm is going off, the call centre phone family members like me instead when I am at work, possibly many miles away resulting in a call-out for the ambulance or fire brigade crews, tying up the emergency services doing social work.

To clarify, in the flats where my father lived there were tenants as young as fifty  five and over one hundred years of age.

Their lifestyles varied tremendously.