How can local elected members help us all age better?

Nicola: How did you become a councillor and why have you focused so much of your work on improving later life?

Jude: I spent 40 years working in social care and health across Stockport and Manchester. I saw many things in that time about the system that weren’t working for older people living in our communities. I stood for election in 2018 because I wanted to use this experience and knowledge to make a difference to the way things were done; my mission was to see the whole person in the place where they live so that we could serve the residents of Stockport better.

For three years you were cabinet member with the Adult Social Care portfolio, and you’ve been a champion of the age-friendly approach. What do you think is key to making places age-friendly?

I start with clarity of purpose and clear priorities. To get our priorities right, we used the World Health Organisation (WHO) age-friendly communities framework and the eight domains to then ask questions about what matters in our communities; what do our residents value?

Secondly, the data is essential. We focused on developing a deep understanding of the population and need at a neighbourhood level. Working at a ward level can help get other councillors involved, using their knowledge about residents, and building cross-party working and it aligns with our model of neighbourhood working. You have to understand the inequalities and deprivation as they're experienced in particular places, and you need to use the numbers as a means to ask questions about what is going on in those places, which is where you join up with the qualitative data.

The work Stockport Council has done with Ageing Better and Manchester School of Architecture in Reddish in developing the Rightplace model is a good example of developing this deep understanding. With Rightplace, researchers were able to use a large quantitative data set and a detailed spatial analysis of the place to engage residents in mid and later life in the process of thinking about what they want and need from housing and the urban environment as they age in that place.

Then, to create action you have to get the decision-making right. Clear leadership, both politically and from senior officers, which is focused on addressing health inequalities, health and social care as we age. This means seeing the whole of people’s lives and designing services around them with accountability across the system. It’s critical to engage all partners, including primary care and the voluntary and community sector.

And last, but by no means least, we have to change the language and the narrative that we use to talk about ageing. It matters how we talk about older people and that we talk in terms of strengths and the contribution that we bring in later life. It was important to actively articulate the narrative and get all partners to sign up to this. Challenging ageism is the responsibility of all of us and it is exciting to see the work Ageing Better are doing to tackle ageism. Hopefully we can all become more courageous about this.

The work in Greater Manchester and Stockport has great examples of engaging and involving older people. What would you say to other elected members about how to do this well? 

It’s important to acknowledge that it’s not always easy. For some residents, formal structures might be where they want to be involved. But, for many others, we need to go to them using a wide variety of strategies and methods in different neighbourhoods, communities and settings to ask people about what matters to them. We have to continually reach out to more, diverse groups of people. Other organisations working with older people might be the best people to involve and engage rather than the local authority directly.

Would you have any advice for other councillors about how they can support their councils to lead on being age-friendly? Particularly, if they are not holding a cabinet position?

I think elected members can play a key role building relationships with senior leaders, in both councils and other partners, to lead on this agenda. Working in Stockport and across Greater Manchester, I have met so many enthusiastic and passionate people driving age-friendly work across a wide range of services and sectors, and across volunteers, front-line workers and senior leaders.

They understand what needs to happen to make age-friendly communities a reality, and as members we can spend time speaking to them and building relationships as well as speaking to residents about what matters so we’re informed. It’s really helpful to visit other places and see what they're doing to increase your knowledge base, bringing what you learn back and sharing it in local and regional forums; building relationships with researchers and academics, or staying informed about the work that Ageing Better do and sharing that. You can use the scrutiny functions and other spaces you have available to you as an elected member to ask important questions, based on what you learn.

You’re obviously moving on to new things. Before you go, what do you think are the key issues for age-friendly communities now? 

During the pandemic, we achieved an awful lot in a time of crisis which can help us to prepare for potential future crises – the challenges around cost of living being the most urgent and pressing – and it help us to build more resilient communities.

The recovery plan for older people remains critical in terms of addressing deconditioning and social isolation – issues that are going to be further impacted on by the cost of living crisis. And we need to do that while recovering some of the ground lost on the narrative – there was a lot of focus on the vulnerability of age in the pandemic and that hasn’t helped in tackling ageism.

As politicians, practitioners, and service providers we need to keep networking, learning and acting – continuing to share, being generous and valuing everything about later life which are the foundations of the age-friendly movement.