Care homes are a relatively recent phenomenon and their short history goes some way to explaining why they are still generally seen as “places of last resort”.

Before 1914, those who needed care, and could afford to pay for it, were looked after at home. Those who couldn’t were sent to the local workhouse. These institutions were introduced under the New Poor Law of 1834 in response to mass unemployment caused by the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the industrial revolution, which forced agricultural labourers off the land and into the new factories in the cities but still left thousands without work.

Many were impressive buildings and the healthcare was free, but the conditions were harsh, partly to act as deterrent. The more rural workhouses soon only housed “the incapable, elderly and sick”, and in 1905 a Royal Commission decided they were no longer serving their initial purpose. Eventually local authorities were granted the power to take over workhouses and run them as municipal hospitals or care homes for “the elderly”.

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