A GROUND-breaking and far-reaching plan to provide extra care to the town's growing elderly population is set to be unveiled at a meeting next week. The scheme, if agreed by members of Waverley Borough Council's community overview and scrutiny committee on Tuesday, could see the development of extra care sheltered housing in Farnham by the spring. Proposals include working with social services to provide higher levels of care and support within two (yet unnamed) housing schemes in Farnham. Currently Waverley's sheltered housing meets the needs of older frail people, but does not provide care, apart from a 24-hour call system to deal with emergencies when they arise. Under the new scheme administered by Surrey Council Council and Guildford and Waverley Primary Care Trust, older people as they acquire greater needs, could be able to remain in their own homes within a sheltered housing facility, with on-site round-the-clock care services. Councillors will hear in a report to the meeting that extra care services include helping people to dress and undress, washing and bathing, putting to bed and getting up. It would also include helping with toileting and administering medicines, which come under the banner of personal care services not undertaken by Waverley staff. The service would be made available to up to seven tenants at each sheltered housing scheme who need the extra care. As part of the proposals, Waverley would need to provide accommodation for the 24-hour care team. This, said the report, would be achieved by creating a dedicated office and rest area within one of Waverley's sheltered housing schemes in the centre of Farnham and funded as part of the scheme's budget rather than through Waverley. Already piloted at Dray Court in Guildford, the scheme, councillors will be told at their meeting, aims to make good use of an "apparent surfeit of traditional sheltered housing and a limited demand among relatively fit elderly people". And it concludes: "Extra Care in Farnham would provide a valuable alternative to residential care and would enable more people to remain in their own homes, living as much an independent life as possible." Waverley director of housing David January told The Herald that council officers think the scheme is a good idea. "As the age of residents increases, so does their frailty, and the extra services will ensure that people can stay in their own homes within the sheltered housing scheme," said Mr January. He said it was the first time the scheme was being tried in the borough. "We are just raising the principle of it and then hope to work it up and get it off the ground in a couple of months. And a spokesman for Surrey County Council said: "What we are trying to do is to use the existing budget better. "It is a wider strategy to try to give frail older people more options - if they would prefer to live in sheltered housing with the extra care, rather than go into residential care."
