The challenge of population ageing was clearly analysed and presented by the Chief Medical Officer Sir Chris Whitty in his 2023 Annual Report Health in an Ageing Society The NHS is already providing a number of services to help people reduce the risk of disease, notably immunisation, screening, health checks and the Ageing Well programme. It has also produced a major policy paper on the benefits of physical activity. However the NHS is only one of the agencies which needs to adapt to the challenge of population ageing so to complement and supplement these preventive services the Public Health team in NHS England developed a system for Living Longer Better with the aims of
The system specification can be seen here. THE NHS CONTRIBUTION The system development project will also ensure that the three strategic objectives set out in the Darzi review and now in the Neighbourhood Health Service model are met, namely:
KEY NATIONAL PARTNERS Obviously the NHS is only one of the agencies which can contribute to meeting the objectives .other key agencies are
COMMUNITY ACTION Please contact us if you are running a project designed to help people live longer better. We are learning from work being done by health services and local authorities serving defined populations but also from what is probably the key population - the neighbourhood. This is a term which has come back into use in the NHS, for example in INTs Integrated Neighbourhood Teams. The term Community is used in other developments and the Centre for Ageing Better is leading work on Age Friendly Communities , for example learning from the work in Greater Manchester. The work of the Agile Ageing Alliance is of particular relevance and importance. Please also draw our attention to any projects which you know about Muir Gray and Sarah Price [email protected] |