Agenda item

To outline the work of Age Friendly Brent in relation to creating an age-friendly borough where people can live healthy and active later lives.

The Chair welcomed Tony Burch and Florence Njoku to present the work being done to achieve Age Friendly status in Brent. In introducing the presentation, Tony Burch explained that he had previously been a GP for 30 years, and a clinical interest in medicine for older people became an interest in service development, particularly integrated care. He had become involved locally in Age UK and was recently elected Chair of Age UK London. Florence Njoku was introduced as the Chair of the Brent Pensioner’s Forum. The Age Friendly Brent campaign had been launched through the Brent Pensioners Forum as a way of ensuring as many older people as possible were involved in the campaign. The following key points were then highlighted:

·       The aim of Age Friendly Brent was to create an age friendly borough where people could live healthy and active later lives where the environment, activities and services enabled older people to enjoy life, participate in society and be valued for their contributions.

·       The slides linked to resources outlining what was happening in the UK Network of Age Friendly communities.

·       There were 8 areas of focus for the Age Friendly Group; outdoor spaces and buildings; transport; housing; social participation; respect and social inclusion; civic participation and employment; communications and information; community support and health services.

·       A steering group had been established with representatives from the Pensioners Forum, Brent Council staff, Age UK, Elders Voice and Ashford Place.

·       Age Friendly Brent had met with Barnet Council who had already achieved Age Friendly status to learn best practice from them, who had provided some useful advice.

·       Focus groups had been set up with WISE, Elders Voice and the Pensioners Forum to drive the work forward. One focus group was made up of participants in receipt of Adult Social Care, another focus group had participants who had been taking part in a Zumba class, so there were a wide range of voices in the focus groups with strong enthusiasm which he hoped to pull together into a big meeting.

·       An application for funding had been made to help resource a dedicated co-ordinator to support the work being done to achieve Age Friendly status.

·       Age Friendly Brent was looking to work with the Council to see whether there was resource that could be provided to help these ambitions, similar to what has been provided in other boroughs that had achieved Age Friendly status. They acknowledged that any resource offered would need to work with the Council’s budget constraints and fit with the Council’s objectives.

·       Tony Burch emphasised that evidence showed that working further downstream on prevention saved significant amounts of money further down the line on acute and clinical care. He hoped that every conversation that took place in the borough considered older people and the positive contribution older people made to society, as well as older people’s needs outside of frailty.

·       The importance of getting buy-in from the Council and partner organisations was highlighted. Other boroughs that had achieved Age Friendly status had an appointed Age Friendly Champion within the Council to work with the Cabinet, Chief Executive, Leader and other councillors which had helped open doors, and it was hoped this could be replicated in Brent.

·       GP Patient Participation Groups were highlighted as a valuable resource to problem solve and hear the lived experience of older people to feed back to services.

·       The Age Friendly Brent group would need to submit an application to the Age Friendly Network and sign up to the WHO Framework of Age Friendly Communities.

·       Florence Njoku provided further information on the work being done with the Brent Pensioners Forum in relation to Age Friendly Brent. She advised that the Forum had embraced the WHO’s Age-Friendly Community Framework and the work being undertaken to achieve Age-Friendly status. They hoped to see a borough where older residents actively collaborated with local groups, councils and businesses to identify and implement changes in their living environments to improve the lives of older people.

·       She then provided some of the key feedback received from the focus groups conducted with WISE;

o   The focus groups had highlighted difficulties in accessing GP practices and a lack of timely appointments.

o   There had been concerns regarding hospital appointments being made before 9am where older people were unable to use their Freedom Pass and struggled to arrange alternative transport.

o   There were difficulties accessing NHS dental practices.

o   The groups highlighted that the public transport system was not sensitive to the needs of older passengers, and often drove off too quickly, resulting in falls and injuries, and stopped too far from the kerb at bus stops.

o   Dial-a-ride services were seen to need improvements.

o   Inadequate or out-of-action public toilets on Brent high streets, public spaces and parks restricted older people from enjoying outdoor life.

The Chair thanked the presenters and invited contributions from those present. The following points were made:

·       The Board agreed that some of the feedback from the focus groups highlighted issues they were already aware of, particularly relating to the provision of public toilets and some of the practical issues relating to hospital appointments and access to GP practices. They felt that the initiative presented a lot of opportunities in terms of addressing inequalities and civic participation.   

·       The Board asked how Age-Friendly status would work and whether Brent needed to achieve particular milestones before it could be obtained. Tony Burch explained that it was achieved through demonstrating a commitment to strive towards being age-friendly, which would always be a work in progress. Rachel Crossley (Corporate Director Community Health and Wellbeing, Brent Council) added that there was no need for a fully formed plan, but to have a group in place who had support from the Council and other local organisations in written form committing to support age-friendly status. Engagement work was also looked upon positively. In Brent, a group had been set up, there was engagement happening through the focus groups and the Council was supportive of the initiative. The organisation did certification every quarter, which gave access to training, resources and information sharing with other age-friendly councils, and accrediation was free. There were 10 other London boroughs with age-friendly status, and Brent would be the first NWL borough to sign up. The Community Health and Wellbeing directorate had been supporting the team co-ordinating this work and provided some public health funding for the work.

·       Further information was given regarding the UK Age-Friendly Network, co-ordinated by the Centre for Aging Better, which provided useful resources to age-friendly communities in the UK nationally. There was also Age-Friendly London which campaigned at a London level, currently focused on public transport fares before 9am and public toilets. Brent’s Age-Friendly group was also campaigning regarding public toilets, as it was seen to be a significant issue with practical resolutions, as well as other shared space issues such as lime bikes on pavements, pedestrian ways and street seating. There were different viewpoints relating to these issues so it was felt that discussions were required to understand everyone’s perspectives and the realities of what could be done within the resources available.

·       In relation to the public realm issues highlighted, members considered how the Age-Friendly Group could get involved and feed into how the Council designed-out crime.

·       Councillor Donnelly-Jackson highlighted the Brent Hubs as an opportunity for the Age-Friendly groups to get involved in, who already worked with Age UK, Elders Voice and Ashford Place. She advised that the director of service was very willing to work with the group around training staff and achieving accreditation for customer facing services such as hubs, registrars, customer services and libraries. In addition, all libraries had received silver accreditation for being Dementia Friendly, and all libraries had toilets.

·       Rammya Mathew was interested in how healthcare could adopt an age-friendly approach, particularly in primary care. She acknowledged the feedback regarding difficulties getting appointments and the length of appointments, and was keen to learn more from the focus groups and the patient participation groups, in order to incorporate this into the new Access Specification for NWL. Tony Burch agreed to speak with Rammya Mathew about this.

·       The Board highlighted that digital exclusion also needed to be considered in this work as more and more services moved online, including banking, Council services and the NHS app. Florence Njoku agreed that this was an issue older people spoke about.

·       The Board asked how this initiative might fit into the radical place leadership approach the Council was focused on. Rachel Crossley explained that, as a Council, departments were thinking about how services could become more local within communities and co-produced with local communities. The Council was looking to see how health and social care could work in more integrated teams with services together in one space, working with the communities on their priorities. She thought there was an opportunity to test where the age-friendly element fit into that approach with all voices together in one space.

·       Councillor members agreed to take back the point about Age-Friendly Champions to see if someone could be appointed to that role.

In concluding the discussion and noting the update, the Board welcomed the work being undertaken to become an age-friendly borough and looked forward to a sign-off at a future meeting on Brent becoming an age-friendly borough. They noted the 8 areas of priority from older people that public services should consider, and welcomed the opportunity to appoint an elected member as an Age-Friendly Champion.