Failing to integrate housing with health and social care services is 'recipe for disaster'

Housing has failed to become 'key player' in the movement to integrate health and social care, a director at the Chartered Institute of Housing has said.

Domini Gunn, director of health and well-being at the CIH, said yesterday failing to prioritise housing as health and social care services were increasingly joined-up, 'was at best an oversight and at worse a recipe for disaster'.

She was speaking as the CIH launched its report Delivering housing, health and care outcomes, which encourages the rhetoric on integration of housing and care to be fully realised.

'Health and care partners are often aware of the importance of a decent home for health and for effective delivery of home care. But for them the issue is the home, not the tenure or landlord. The complexity of strategic housing and planning responsibilities in district councils are not well understood,' the report said.