Mowlam Healthcare is the first residential care provider outside of the US to be granted Age Friendly Health System Participant status.

Best practice in residential care settings should never be in doubt, and, appropriately, there are minimum standards in terms of quality and safety that each facility must comply with.

But what about those that want to go above and beyond the minimum, and instead reorient the standard of care so that the patients – and their wishes – are at the centre? Mowlam Healthcare is doing just that, having secured Age-Friendly Health Systems Participant status for its residential care homes. This international healthcare quality improvement initiative, devised in the US by the John A Hartford Foundation and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) follows an essential set of evidence-based practices and ultimately align what matters to the older adult and their care provision.

Mowlam Healthcare is the first residential care provider outside of the United States to have been granted Age Friendly Health System Participant status, explains Dr PJ Harnett, their lead of integrated care since last year. As the previous HSE national programme lead for the Integrated Care Programme for Older Persons, he is well-versed in the needs of older people living in residential care. He points out that this accreditation approach enshrines a truly patient-centric philosophy into daily care procedures and processes.

The experts who drew up the framework initially identified more than 90 evidence-based interventions to improve the care outcomes for older people. “Ultimately these were distilled down to four key pillars, which improves outcomes when implemented in a consistent fashion,” says Harnett, who will be presenting on this work at the Future Health Summit.

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