BGS roundtable calls for transformation of older people's care
BGS has today called on the Government, NHS organisations and the voluntary sector to take urgent steps towards transforming care for older people. Our new report is the result of a roundtable event held in June with England’s Chief Medical Officer, Professor Sir Chris Whitty, and leaders from the NHS, social care, the voluntary sector and think tanks.
In 2023 Professor Sir Chris Whitty published his annual report Health in an ageing society and the BGS published its blueprint, Joining the Dots. These two publications set out the opportunities and challenges of an ageing population. They show how health and care systems need to change to delay the onset of frailty and disability, and how they can better cater for the needs of this user group.
The problems, and the solutions, are well known. The issue now lies with implementation, which was the focus of our roundtable discussion. It covered five themes – the need for a skilled workforce, better use of data and technology, social care and housing, prevention and healthy lifestyles, and better integration of services. Our report makes ten recommendations of organisations across health and care.
We are grateful to all our participants for attending with a spirit of openness and collaboration, demonstrating a determination to make real changes to older people’s healthcare. This was despite the event taking place during the pre-election period and some of our participants with roles in the civil service being limited in what they could say.
BGS has a crucial role in bringing together leaders from across sectors. We were pleased to convene this group of decision-makers who are well-placed to influence how older people are cared for in acute, primary, community and social care settings. We have committed to doing so again in early 2025 to identify where progress has been made and where work is still needed.
Professor Adam Gordon MBE, President of the British Geriatrics Society, said:
We are very grateful to everyone who participated in our event and for their commitment to transforming the design and delivery of older people’s healthcare. We hope that our report captures the discussions and that those reading it can help to deliver our shared vision of improved care for an ageing population. Over the coming months, we will be using this report to engage with the new Government to ensure that they are as committed to improving healthcare for older people as the people at our roundtable are. The future of our health and social care system will be shaped by how well we care for an ageing population. We must get this right.”
Professor Sir Chris Whitty, Chief Medical Officer for England, said:
Maximising the quality of health in older adults should be seen as a national priority - we can make very significant progress with relatively straightforward evidence-based interventions. We need to recognise and reflect in policy and medical practice where older people are concentrated geographically, maintain clinicians’ generalist skills, improve mental health provisions and make it unacceptable to exclude older adults from research because of older age or common comorbidities.”