Care homes: How to design out infection and design in wellbeing

Anne Marie Nicholson, Partner at PRP crop

Covid-19 has laid bare how problematic a care home setting can be, but there are ways to rethink spaces and improve lives, says PRP’s Anne-Marie Nicholson

We have undeniably failed to shelter our social-care sector and our elderly since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis. The steep numbers published by the ONS in May are there to remind us of what we have lost and still have to lose.

But despite the reality of so many of our care-homes throughout the pandemic the future does not have to be as bleak as the past.

In the face of coronavirus, it is time to carefully rethink how we design care-homes to safeguard our elderly from future pandemics and enable them to lead less isolated and better supported lives. At the same time, we need to ensure that other models of housing with care options are available.

Some design ideas will come at an additional cost to providers and developers but others are just about applying some common sense.

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