This learning resource pack is designed to help deliver end of life care for residents of extra care housing.

The pack provides guidance on how to plan and deliver care and housing support for residents nearing the end of life, and covers all stages from having initial conversations to supporting families after death.

The pack is authored by ILC-UK researchers (Chloe Carter, former ILC-UK Research Officer and Dylan Kneale, Head of Research) and was commissioned by the NHS End of Life Care Programme and produced by the Housing LIN. This pack builds on an existing pack, authored by Housing 21, but includes an emphasis on the way that enabling residents to live life to the full can also help residents plan ahead and plan what happens at the end of life. The new pack also includes a number of ‘top tips’ shared by people working in extra care housing.

This work builds on an earlier ILC-UK report from 2011 that examined extra care housing and included a particular focus on extra care housing as a home for life. This new pack should enable extra care housing to become a home for life for even greater numbers of older people. It was produced from a combination of desk research, stakeholder interviews and a number focus groups that were run with extra care housing staff and other interested parties.

ILC-UK are very grateful to the Housing LIN and NHS End of Life Care Programme and to all those who helped produced the pack and in particular the following people who formed the steering group: Claire Henry and Kate Henry (National End of Life Care Programme), Jeremy Porteus (Housing LIN), Alison Colclough and Jane Colling (Cheshire End of Life Care Service Model), Sue Garwood (Extra Care Specialist), Elizabeth Kendrick (County Durham & Darlington NHS Foundation Trust), Jackie Morris (British Geriatrics Society and ILC-UK Advisor), Caroline Nicholson (National Nursing Research Unit, King’s College, London) and Sarah Vallelly (Housing 21).

Authors: Chloe Carter and Dylan Kneale