Channel 4 documentary focuses on subject of assisted living for Asian elders

As a follow up to PRIAE’s Minority Elderly Health and Social Care European Research Project, Channel 4 News approached PRIAE (the Policy Research Institute on Ageing and Ethnicity) as they were compiling a news programme on Asian elders in care homes in the UK.

PRIAE has contributed to this programme by responding to their many questions. They also benefited by interviewing PRIAE’s Director Professor Naina Patel, OBE. She raised the issue of the need for care homes specifically for the Asian Elders who prefer to be in familiar surroundings, ‘…minority ethnic elders want quality services like any elders, but are not currently receiving basic services to meet their growing needs’. She also argued that the government have failed to respond to acute housing needs of minority ethnic elderly population, who will double in the next 5 years.

Channel 4 News covered the story of a centre in Wandsworth, with inadequate funding, and yet the Asian elders using it, found the services critical in breaking their isolation. The European Research from PRIAE that Channel 4 referred to, gives strong evidence on the minority age organisations’ current services and the need for improved resources today, as many cannot wait till tomorrow.

PRIAE’s objectives in conducting the Minority Elderly Care (MEC) Research study in Europe were:

1. To inform and help plan the nature, direction and provision of health and social care services on the needs of minority ethnic elders, which are often not met by mainstream providers. This will improve the provision of services for them throughout Europe in the context of rising population and needs.

2. To produce an analysis of health, social care, income and access requirements of elders from about 26 minority ethnic groups in 10 European Countries, namely, UK, Finland, France, Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Hungary, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Switzerland.

3. To have a positive impact on related issues such as housing and income management, so that programmes in these areas can be introduced and be seen as taking a preventive approach to acute health and social care problems.

For more information on PRIAE, visit www.priae.org/