A Call for Inclusive Care in Older Age
To mark Pride Month, Dr Paul Martin, Chief Executive at LGBT Foundation, highlights the urgent need for LGBTQ+ inclusive care and introduces the new Pride in Practice: Care Award—a pioneering step toward dignity and visibility for LGBTQ+ residents.
Feelings of isolation and loneliness are the most common issues raised by older LGBTQ+ people calling LGBT Foundation’s national support helpline, and we know that this higher prevalence within LGBTQ+ communities causes additional mental and physical health support needs as well as additional barriers to accessing services. This experience within LGBTQ+ communities happens due to a combination of factors including ostracisation by relatives, relocation to more LGBTQ+-friendly areas away from former contacts and the lesser likelihood of having children who can support in later life. There can also be a feeling of disconnection with support spaces offered for older people where LGBTQ+ communities are not always openly visible, discrimination can go unchallenged or assumptions about someone’s gender identity or sexuality can be made or not even recognised as of ongoing importance in later life.
This can all become even more magnified in care settings when mixing with unfamiliar teams of staff and a rotating community of new residents, which can lead to many in our communities going back into the closet and hiding their LGBTQ+ identities, maybe for the first time in decades. And with a lack of training and knowledge within care teams around LGBTQ+ heath and care support, for example care around ageing with HIV or managing the effects of hormone treatments for older trans individuals, it is no wonder that accessing social care continues to be a huge worry for those ageing within LGBTQ+ communities.
Announced just ahead of this year’s Pride Month LGBT Foundation is launching the Pride in Practice: Care Award, which is set to roll out in areas of Greater Manchester and London before a national expansion. Combining training offered to all levels of staff and support for service leads to implement key LGBTQ+ inclusion principles in their services, the scheme will be a trusted marker of LGBTQ+ inclusivity for care providers and will ensure that LGBTQ+ residents in care homes and supported housing receive affirming, high-quality care. The award builds on the success of LGBT Foundation’s Pride in Practice award for primary care, has been developed with direct expertise from LGBT Foundation’s community-led older people’s programme Pride in Ageing and has been informed by our ongoing development with Manchester City Council and Great Places of a new LGBTQ+-majority Extra Care Scheme in Manchester.
Highlighted in the Care Award’s guidance for service leads is support for you to implement monitoring to ensure LGBTQ+ communities within care are counted, how to ensure your policies include chosen family and LGBTQ+ relationships and how to balance cultural and religious sensitivities with high quality LGBTQ+-inclusive care. The training package which can be offered to all staff opens up conversations around LGBTQ+ inclusive language, how to avoid assumptions and how to create a positive care environment where LGBTQ+ people are visibly included, such as with rainbow lanyards or celebrations of Pride Month. Achieving the Care Award will also be the start of ongoing relationship with LGBT Foundation that will allow you to access continuous staff training and updates from us on any legal or healthcare related developments that will keep your service at the cutting edge of LGBTQ+ care.
There is a way we can work together around positive change to remove the fears of ageing and care for older LGBTQ+ people. And as we know looking at recent census data that the numbers of open and out older LGBTQ+ people will grow in the future, this is a community within care services who will become only more visible going forward and who will hold the care system and services accountable to recognise and include their needs under their legal obligations to those within their care. Any forward-thinking care services should join us in our ambitions and aim to get ahead of this curve.
For further information about the Pride in Practice: Care Award, please contact us via email at trainingacademy@lgbt.foundation or via phone at 0345 3 30 30 30.
