Highlights
- •The concept of ‘home’ is dynamic, complex and highly individual.
- •Scottish quality indicators state that residential/nursing care for older people should provide a homely environment.
- •There are tensions between creating a homely environment and the requirement to meet other standards of care, such as Health and Safety.
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?
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: February 26, 2017
Accepted:
February 22,
2017
Received in revised form:
February 18,
2017
Received:
February 12,
2017
Identification
Copyright
Crown Copyright © 2017 Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
