Cocooning isn’t coming to an end any time soon, according to a new survey commissioned by Home and Community Care Ireland (HCCI). Its research claims that more than one fifth (22%) of all adults, not just the elderly, are planning to cocoon for the foreseeable future.

Speaking to Irish Country Living, Joseph Musgrave, CEO of HCCI said he is surprised at the results. "It certainly shows the large number of people in the younger age groups who have underlying health conditions,” he said.

He said home is proving the safest place to be, with just 60 of HCCI's home care clients having an active COVID-19 infection as of 24 May, while a further 60 have recovered. More than one third of these people were treated at home.

“HCCI members have more than 20,000 clients and this low rate of infection is testament to the dedication of home carers, home care providers and the Irish people. Home really is the safest place to be.”

New services support cocooning

Home help was identified by 15% of all adults planning to cocoon as a support that would make cocooning feasible longer-term. Not surprisingly this increases to 23% for 65+ year olds.

Shopping delivered straight to your door, virtual social meetings with family and friends and access to safe services such as hairdressing, virtual medical consultations and home delivery medication all help support cocooning.

Re-open home care pilot

Before COVID-19 arrived, HCCI was working with the Department of Health and the HSE to see what model of home care would work best and four pilot sites had been identified. Musgrave wants this pilot re-opened.

“The current nursing home centric-model is broken. We need to look at Finland and Germany and be ambitious about how we better care for vulnerable people. This survey shows that people need more supports to live in their communities, and not just survive at home,” he says.

Family and health most important things in life

‘Family’ (76%) and ‘health’ (59%) were identified by the HCCI survey as the two most important things in life. the latter showing an increase of almost 10% on last year’s findings. ’Career’ was selected by just 2% – down from 4% last year, while ‘money’ was also down from 10% to 6%.

When asked, ‘What do you most value in your community’ most people said, ‘shops’ while ‘sense of community’ was also selected by a majority. For those aged 65+ ‘chatting to neighbours’ was identified as most valued at 65%.

About the Home and Community Care Ireland Survey

The Home and Community Care Ireland Survey was conducted by iReach Insights among a nationally representative sample of 1,000 total responses and ran between 21 and 26 May 2020.

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