Healthy ageing toolkit

Norfolk and Waveney has an ageing population.  While many of our residents are living well into older age, a significant number of older people have complex health and care needs such as frailty and/or dementia.  These people are some of the most frequent users of our local services and providing appropriate support is one of the biggest challenges facing our health and care system.

To meet the rising need for support, we have to change the way we work.  Too much care is provided by crisis or specialist services.  This often does not lead to the best outcome for the individual.

By working better together, we can enable more older people and their families and carers to enjoy the best possible quality of life and remain safe and well at home this winter and beyond.  This toolkit outlines some practical steps for achieving this ambition.

The toolkit is designed for anybody who is supporting older people in the community, including families, carers and older people themselves.  By using the toolkit, we will be able to:

• Proactively recognise people living with frailty and/or dementia at an early stage
• Signpost older people to information and advice about these conditions and healthy ageing in general
• Work together to link older people, especially those with frailty and/or dementia, into local services that can help them to enjoy the best possible quality of life and remain safe and well at home

Healthy ageing is everybody’s responsibility. The connections that we make together can change people’s lives.

Healthy ageing is part of our Promoting Independence strategy to ‘support people to be independent, resilient and well’ and prevent, reduce and delay the need for social care."

The three aims of our Promoting Independence strategy are:

• Prevention and early help
• Staying independent for longer
• Living with complex needs

In this context, healthy ageing is about making the most of prevention and early help resources in our local communities to enable older people, especially those living with complex needs such as frailty and dementia, to stay independent for as long as possible.

The healthy ageing initiative links into wider work on frailty through the Norfolk and Waveney Sustainability and Transformation Partnership (STP).

The healthy ageing toolkit was developed in partnership with members of the Norfolk and Waveney Healthy Ageing Steering Group.

Frailty and dementia

This section sets out some information about frailty and dementia, two long-term conditions that are particularly common among people aged 65 or older.  It is really important that we know how to recognise frailty and dementia at any early stage so we can better support older people to live well with these conditions.

Frailty

More than 110,000 people aged over 65 are living with a degree of frailty in Norfolk and Waveney - this is nearly half of residents aged over 65.  By working better together and using the resources below, we can support older people to reduce their frailty, minimising the risk and impact of acute health problems and enabling them to enjoy the best possible quality of life.

Frailty in focus

Dementia

There are nearly 14,000 people living with dementia in Norfolk and Waveney.  This figure is expected to rise to more than 25,000 over the next 15-20 years.  This is the same as the population of Dereham.  By working better together and using the healthy ageing resources below, we can support older people with dementia, and their families and carers, to enjoy the best possible quality of life.

Dementia in focus