Our mission is to help people live longer better
Our mission is to enable people to live better for longer, to increase Healthy Life Expectancy and reduce the period of time at the end of life when people are very dependent on others.  It is based on a clear understanding of the science and a strong evidence base.
​The number of people over 80 is going to increase significantly in the next ten years with little increase in healthy life expectancy in prospect. This has huge implications for health and social care services.  It doesn’t have to be this way. The evidence is strong that we can reduce the risk of falls, prevent and delay dementia, disability and frailty.  In turn, this will reduce the need for long term health and social care by approximately £45m per million of population for every year of healthy life expectancy. More of the same won’t achieve this and nor will yet another reorganisation of health and social care services. A revolution is underway, enabled by an integrated system for living longer better, with the following objectives:
  • Prevent and mitigate isolation
  • Increase physical ability, resilience and healthspan, and to prevent falls and frailty
  • Promote knowledge and understanding about living longer better among older people and the wider population to counteract the detrimental effects of ageism
  • Create an environment in which people can fulfil their potential
  • Activate people and enable strengthening of purpose 
  • Support carers better 
  • Minimise and mitigate the effects of deprivation 
  • Reduce the risk of, and delay or prevent  dementia
  • Prevent and minimise the effects of disease and multimorbidity
  • Enable dying well as well as living well
These objectives are being delivered by local networks.  Already about 30 million of the population are supported by networks of AgeUK, the Active Partnerships, the NHS, Local Authorities and the business community.  ​These networks are also leading a cultural revolution to create a positive environment which recognises the talents and potential of older people and appreciates what is needed to reduce the obstacles that too often prevent people realising their potential to contribute to society.

​Living Longer Better complements and supplements the Ageing Well programme of NHS England. The Ageing Well programme takes a systematic approach to identifying all the people with frailty, or at high risk of developing frailty, and ensuring the NHS clinical teams, particularly in primary care, take effective, evidence-based action to prevent deterioration and unnecessary hospital admission, because of the adverse effect that has on people with frailty no matter how high the quality of care in the hospital.

Mission and goals

Programme of learning
The Live Longer Better programme has three aims.
The first is to increase activity (physical, cognitive and emotional) which will:
  • Help people feel and function better, this year
  • Prevent or delay the onset of dementia, disability and frailty
  • Focus on the three Rs: regain confidence and purpose, recover the strength stamina and suppleness they have lost in the last decade, and recondition the body that disease and inappropriate activity has deconditioned
The second is to increase healthy life expectancy and compress the period of dependency.
The third is to reduce the need for health and social care because a person with greater strength, stamina, skill and suppleness has greater resilience and is less likely to need acute care.

About us

We are three teams based in Oxford working in partnership, the Optimal Ageing Programme led by Muir Gray , e-learning specialists Learning with Experts and Active Oxfordshire, which has strong links with Sport England.
The main intervention to achieve the goal of the revolution is not technological, although it is enabled by technology.  Rather, the goal will be achieved through learning that opens up new ways of thinking for older people, the family, professionals and volunteers who support them, and the leadership of key decision makers.  Our learning programme is based on the best current knowledge and delivered through online learning in small interactive groups.

Library and resources

There is strong scientific evidence that if we put into practice the knowledge that we already have, people can live longer better.  Most of the serious problems that people face before their late nineties are not due to the normal, biological ageing process but to three other process that can be modified by individuals and society – loss of fitness, disease and negative, ageist thinking. Our library organises the evidence behind this and contains the knowledge that is needed to reduce the risk or disability, frailty, dementia and dependence on other people.
Knowledge is the Elixir of Life - the way we think about ageing is wrong; the new evidence from research lets us reimagine ageing and then realise the new paradigm — Muir Gray
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