The report on Healthy Ageing by the Health and Social Care Select Committee is the most important document ever produced by Government on how society should respond to the challenge of population ageing set out in the Chief Medical Officer's 2023 Annual Report.
The Report, sub-titled Physical Activity in an Ageing Society is based on best current scientific evidence and on the experience of those organisations working to increase activity levels. The submission from the Oxford Longevity Project emphasised that the biological ageing process itself is not the major cause of the problems of people in their 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s – David Attenborough illustrates this principle clearly. Inactivity, physical and mental, is one of the major causes, some would argue the major cause, of disability, frailty, dependence and increases the need for health and social care. Inactivity is also both a major risk factor for the common diseases of later life, including dementia, and the cause of accelerated loss of fitness after the onset of disease, caused not only by the disease but also by well intentioned encouragement or imposition of ‘rest’.
The principal cause of inactivity is not personal 'lifestyle' but environmental factors, notably sitting jobs and car ownership, and social factors, notably ageism and deprivation . This is recognised for the first time in this Report which emphasises that the solutions are for this scientific evidence to be made available to everyone and for the barriers that too many people face being reduced or removed.
Increasing activity is the single best means of increasing Healthy Life Expectancy and reducing the need for health and social care and this report emphasises the need to
There are clear signals for a wide range of organisations in addition to provide leadership notably the pension and insurance industry, UKActive and Sport England who both gave evidence, as did AgeUK and the Centre for Ageing Better and the ABPI
The Report, sub-titled Physical Activity in an Ageing Society is based on best current scientific evidence and on the experience of those organisations working to increase activity levels. The submission from the Oxford Longevity Project emphasised that the biological ageing process itself is not the major cause of the problems of people in their 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s – David Attenborough illustrates this principle clearly. Inactivity, physical and mental, is one of the major causes, some would argue the major cause, of disability, frailty, dependence and increases the need for health and social care. Inactivity is also both a major risk factor for the common diseases of later life, including dementia, and the cause of accelerated loss of fitness after the onset of disease, caused not only by the disease but also by well intentioned encouragement or imposition of ‘rest’.
The principal cause of inactivity is not personal 'lifestyle' but environmental factors, notably sitting jobs and car ownership, and social factors, notably ageism and deprivation . This is recognised for the first time in this Report which emphasises that the solutions are for this scientific evidence to be made available to everyone and for the barriers that too many people face being reduced or removed.
Increasing activity is the single best means of increasing Healthy Life Expectancy and reducing the need for health and social care and this report emphasises the need to
- Embed the benefits of activity in every conversation
- Routinely prescribe activity along with, and sometimes instead of, drugs (and the new W:ISH technology will do this automatically)
- Work more closely with the fitness industry
- Commission specific programmes, for example for people with dementia or people with cancer
- Transform the culture and practice of social care
There are clear signals for a wide range of organisations in addition to provide leadership notably the pension and insurance industry, UKActive and Sport England who both gave evidence, as did AgeUK and the Centre for Ageing Better and the ABPI