The Centre for Ageing Better is calling on retailers, buyers, designers and manufacturers to work together to ensure a better range of more attractive products to support people at home are made more visible in the mainstream market.
Government should also use the opportunity of the £98 million ‘Healthy Ageing’ fund, part of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, to invest in products and services that are ‘inclusively designed’ and therefore suitable for people of all ages, incorporating insights from the people who will use them at every stage. For example, kitchens and bathrooms that are designed to be accessible for people of all ages, not simply creating products for older individuals.
The research also reveals that the process under which local authorities give information and support to help people make changes to their homes can be so complex and varied that even professionals working in the area struggle to navigate it. This, combined with under-staffing, results in funding ‘bottlenecks’ and long waiting lists, with people in urgent need of support and funding to adapt their homes suffering long delays for equipment or ‘going it alone’ and getting inferior products and support from door-to-door sales people.
NHS data suggests that 24% of men and 31% of women over 65 struggle with one or more Activity of Daily Living – including, washing, dressing, eating and going to the toilet – approximately 3.3 million people. By people’s late 80s, over one in three people have difficulty undertaking five or more of these activities unaided.