The BGS has responded to news that the planned budget for NHS England’s Ageing Well programme has been cut by £390million (70%), as reported in HSJ.
The Ageing Well programme, as set out in the
NHS Long Term Plan, promised a bold future for older people’s healthcare, with a focus on keeping older people well in the community and reducing hospital admissions. Implemented as intended, this programme would have been revolutionary for older people’s healthcare in England.
Progress has been made in developing urgent response services in the community, supporting care homes and providing hospital-level care at home with virtual wards and Hospital at Home services. However, the planned investment in proactive care and rehabilitation services did not materialise.
There is no doubt that the context has changed since the publication of the NHS Long Term Plan in 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic had a huge impact on the NHS and obviously priorities and funding commitments had to be reconsidered – but there seems little logic to the way that plans have changed. Older people were more likely than any other group to become ill with COVID and to die from it, and the pandemic served to highlight the need for integrated care for the group who use the NHS most. Ageing Well was intended to be a joined-up programmed aimed at keeping people well and living independently for as long as possible as well as ensuring fast discharge and community-based support and rehabilitation if they were admitted to hospital. However, this could only be achieved through sustained investment in the programme, not through the fragmented funding that we have seen.
Despite this, we know that systems up and down the country are implementing services that are making a real difference to the care provided to older people. For example, the proactive care strand of the Ageing Well programme has largely been defunded but there are examples of good quality proactive care being delivered by systems across England. The challenge now is to harness these pockets of good practice as part of an overall transformation of the system of care for older people, to ensure that these services are available to all, regardless of where they live. The upcoming NHS Ten Year Plan provides the opportunity to set out how the NHS meets the needs of its larger user group, older people, now and in the future.
Professor Adam Gordon MBE, President of the British Geriatrics Society, said:
The Ageing Well programme promised so much for older people’s healthcare and, unfortunately, has failed to live up to those promises. However, there is now a renewed opportunity for system transformation, as set out so clearly in the Chief Medical Officer’s 2023 Report. The forthcoming NHS Ten Year Plan must address the reality of an ageing population and focus on joined-up care for those who use the health and care system the most. Now is the opportunity to renew the strategy and, this time, to deliver on promises made. We urge the new government and NHS leaders to act now with vital investment, systems leadership and renewed commitment to ensure that everyone has the care and support they need as they age."
