Homely Residential Care: A Contradiction in Terms? 1
SHEILA PEACE Senior Lecturer a1 and CAROLINE HOLLAND Research Fellow a1
a1 School of Health and Social Welfare, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA
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AbstractAccommodation and care for older people is commonly thought of in relation
to residential care homes: the collective settings with communal
lounges and dining rooms, where older people may live what seems to be a
fine balance between individual and group routines. Yet, while there have
been changes to the living arrangements of people in relatively large
collective groups, the ideal put forward as a basis for care settings has
remained that of ‘home’, with the family model still central. With the
tensions between public and private, domestic and institutional living,
regulated and non-regulated settings, all too obvious, this article uses a
pilot study in Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire of registered
small homes with less than four residential places, often run by the
proprietor and her family, to consider whether residential homes may
replicate a homely environment, or whether the model has run its course.
Footnotes1 The authors would like to thank two anonymous referees for their helpful comments on this article.
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