Care homes: The developing ideology of a homelike place to live

Fleming, Anne; Kydd, Angela; Stewart, Sally

Abstract

This paper reports on part of a doctoral study which explored stakeholder perceptions of the importance of a homelike environment in a care home and which factors contributed to this. The changes in institutional care for older people have evolved from being a ‘warehouse’ type of environment for those too poor, too mad, too sick and too unloved, to a place where older people in need of care can spend their days in safety, in a ‘homely’ environment. Such an environment is one of the quality indicators of care home provision. Yet defining what ‘homeliness’ means is fraught with difficulties. This article presents a narrative literature review on the concept of ‘home’ and the common measures taken to address homeliness in a care home setting. The results show that although the word ‘homely’ is used with the presumption of a shared understanding, the concept is elusive and highly subjective. Given that long-term care now provides homes for an increasingly wide range of age groups and individuals with increasingly diverse backgrounds and personal histories, is a shared viewpoint on homeliness possible? Indeed, is it ever possible to make an institution homely?

Citation

Fleming, A., Kydd, A., & Stewart, S. (2017). Care homes: The developing ideology of a homelike place to live. Maturitas, 99, 92-97. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.maturitas.2017.02.013

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Feb 22, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Feb 27, 2017
• Publication Date: May 1, 2017
• Deposit Date: Mar 14, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 28, 2018
• Journal: Maturitas
• Print ISSN: 0378-5122
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 99
• Pages: 92-97
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.maturitas.2017.02.013
• Keywords: Care homes; Homeliness; Elderly
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/811598
• Contract Date: May 29, 2017