Dr. Nat O'Connor:

The key issue is choice and control for the older person. Just because someone is in a nursing home, it does not mean that person cannot or does not want to manage his or her financial affairs. That should be front and centre. Even if someone loses some capacity, in order to be able to make those decisions, he or she needs the decision-making service under the Assisted Decision Making (Capacity) Act to be fully operational, which is not yet the case.

We are introducing a new statutory home care scheme and we are waiting to see details of that. We know most people want to age in place; that is in the programme for Government. People want to stay in their homes. This new scheme may unlock properties this year, but in five years' time, all going well, many more people will be staying at home longer and therefore their stay in a nursing home will be later in life when they have a higher degree of needs. Therefore, the tenancies that could be achieved from those houses will be shorter. I quite agree that, for the time that is in it, if we could free up 4,000 dwellings, that would make sense. However, the older person must have control over the process, which is why we need that wraparound of the safeguarding so that his or her wishes are adhered to at all times.