Katharine Orellana is Research Fellow and Jill Manthorpe is Director at the NIHR Policy Research Unit in Health and Social Care Workforce at King’s. (420 words)
A new report aims to improve the understanding of day centre services for older people among social care and health professionals and potential collaborators.
The Covid-19 pandemic led to a greater appreciation of everyone’s need for in-person, face-to-face contact and the difficulties facing some older people when they could no longer meet other people in their day centre when these closed temporarily. Now is the time for professionals to re-examine the value and broader use of these services, and their buildings and activities. Rather than continue to view day centres to be resource-heavy or expensive services, the focus could shift to what they do, and could offer – to individuals, their staff and volunteers, the social care sector, the wider community, local councils, the NHS, and the education sector. They have great potential to make preventive and early intervention approaches promoted by policy a local reality.
This report provides a rich, pre-Covid pandemic account of four very different English day centres for older people. It sets out their main characteristics, aims, approach, locality, interiors, formal and informal care provided, opening hours, available ‘extras’, charges made to attenders and, finally, ‘typical days’ at each. Continue reading