Planning for aging populations

According to the United Nations Population Division, globally, the number of older persons (aged 60 years or over) is expected to more than double from 841 million people in 2013 to more than 2 billion in 2050. More health care capacity is required to cater to this increase in demand, not only in terms of the acute medical needs that increase in old age, but also in regard to long-term social care.

Useful lessons can be learnt from around the world in meeting the needs of an ageing society. High quality, innovative designs are crucial to improving perceptions and delivery, meeting tenure needs, and suiting the diversity of society. Space, light, accessibility and a shared sense of purpose — the idea of being part of a community and of ordinary people taking control of housing processes — are recurring themes.

Many of the large residential care home providers such as Care UK have recognized the need to grow their operations to respond to the increase in demand. As a result, Care UK engaged AECOM in 2010 to oversee a major program to build a substantial number of homes around the United Kingdom over five years. This is an ambitious goal, but as a delivery partner, we are taking a strategic approach to cost, project, risk and procurement management and helping them deliver the homes in the most cost-effective and efficient way.

Our success is evidenced through our work in partnership with a wide range of Clients and Designers, procuring mixed care and extra care schemes, which have been shortlisted and have won numerous national awards including Best Dementia Design at the National Care Awards and Best International Elderly Care Design at the International Academy for Design and Health.

AECOM’s knowledge and experience with this type of facility puts us in an excellent position to advise on economic design and layout alternatives.

Our sector focus and geographical coverage enables us to produce unrivalled cost, functional and programme data through Global Unite, which contains historic project cost and other details available to all AECOM staff globally.

For example, we have utilized this knowledge to:

• Provide a robust basis for negotiation and analysis of contractor costs, which resulted in significantly reduced elemental tender prices for work packages on a project procured at the peak of the market. This equated to total reduced tender costs of approximately 23% against the original tender.
• Challenge design and functional areas to ensure best practice and efficiencies were being achieved as the design developed, during pre-planning, and while working alongside the architect. This enabled reductions in the communal areas without any detriment to the overall design, reducing GIFA by 8%.

Paul Donlan (Paul.Donlan@aecom.com) is a director in AECOM’s program, cost, consultancy business line and head of affordable housing, Europe. He has worked in the social housing and care/extra-care sector for nearly 40 years.
LinkedIn: Paul Donlan