Agenda item

This report provides an update on BCP’s Age Friendly Communities partnership and highlights the key takeaways from the new State of Ageing report for BCP.

This partnership has grown into a thriving collaborative network, with a breadth of partners working together to empower people to age well, feel part of their local communities and build community resilience. With the help of external funding, the partnership is now in its third year and is well established with a local action plan and sharing best practice through the UK national steering group.

The State of Ageing report brings together a range of data sources to provide a detailed picture of older people and their experience of ageing in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole. This report aims to provide data-driven insights to guide policy and interventions; and encourage proactive measures across the integrated care system to improve the quality of life of our local older population.

The Community Initiatives Manager presented a report, a copy of which had been circulated to each Member and a copy of which appears as Appendix 'A' to these Minutes in the Minute Book.

The report provided an update on BCP’s Age Friendly Communities partnership and highlighted the key takeaways from the new State of Ageing report for BCP.

The partnership had grown into a thriving collaborative network, with a breadth of partners working together to empower people to age well, feel part of their local communities and build community resilience. With the help of external funding, the partnership was now in its third year and was well established with a local action plan and sharing best practice through the UK national steering group.

The State of Ageing report brings together a range of data sources to provide a detailed picture of older people and their experience of ageing in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole. The report aimed to provide data-driven insights to guide policy and interventions; and encourage proactive measures across the integrated care system to improve the quality of life of our local older population.

The Board considered the presentation and made comments, including:

• A Board Member welcomed the rich information detailed and that it had been tied back to the work of the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment. It was also highlighted that the integrated care system (ICS) needed to consider how it could humanise processes and make reasonable adjustments in how it responds to people to ensure the whole person is considered and not just the presenting issue.
• It was highlighted how this linked to other items on the agenda and the work of the Integrated Neighbourhood Teams and requested consideration be given to the ambition when it came to place based assets and the setting of priorities, setting tangible actions and the measurements of success/progress.  It was also noted that this needed to connected to the work detailed on the Joint Forward Plan.
• The Better Care Fund was highlighted including its focus on carers and how they featured strongly in the report and the need to consider them when embedding the principals of the fulfilled lives programme in optimising wellbeing.
• The Vice Chair highlighted the need to ensure literature was easily accessible and where there was reference to ensuring language was culturally sensitive, suggested reaching out to different communities for them to assist with translation to ensure it was accurate.
• There was some further considerations detailed including further work into deprivation to improve quality of health and wellbeing later in life for those communities.
• Conversations with local businesses and employers were highlighted as important to ensure the age friendly communities work reached all the appropriate forums.

Cathi Hadley joined the meeting at 14:42pm.

RESOLVED that the Board:

a)    Recognise the contribution that BCP’s Age Friendly Communities network of partners provides in helping older people to age well, stay independent for longer and potentially thrive within their communities.

b)    Use the insight from the State of Ageing report, alongside the JSNA (Joint Strategic Needs Assessment), to understand the demographic issues of our older population, to better plan for growth and demand on services across the system.

Help facilitate work between the Age Friendly Communities partnership and systems partner in response to the report findings, in order to review and improve on the age friendliness of services and support.