Link Age Joining up services for older people

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Link Age - Joining up services for older people
John Hannam Nottinghamshire County Council
john.hannam_at_nottscc.gov.uk
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About Nottinghamshire

• 750,000 population
• 265,000 (35.3) are 50 and over (already over the
  national average and growing )
• 7 District Councils
• 2 PCTs

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Key Policy Drivers

• NSF Older People 2001
• Choosing Health 2004
• Opportunity Age 2005
• Independence Wellbeing and Choice 2005
• Sure Start to Later Life 2006
• Our Health Our Care our Say 2006

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Shift towards well being and prevention in
Nottinghamshire

• BGOP pilot 1998
• Care Direct 2002
• Prevention Grant and Joint Prevention Strategy
  in 1999
• Cross cutting Best Value Review, Promotion of
  Independence of Older People 2003
• Promotion of Independence Budget
• Beacon Award 2004/5
• Invest to Save 2005
• Link Age plus 2006

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Background to engagement with older people

• No-one knows better the requirements of older
  people than older people themselves
• County-wide Older Peoples Strategic Partnership
• Older Peoples Advisory Groups
• Opportunity Age 2006 County-wide strategy on
  ageing

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Link Age Plus and Invest to Save

• Link Age plus is a central government initiative
  from the Dept for Work and Pensions lasting two
  years
• From Social Exclusion Report A Sure Start to
  Later Life
• Invest to Save is a successful bid from the
  Treasury lasting three years
• Aims to improve access to services for older
  people through joined up working and demonstrate
  the value of investing in preventative services

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Link Age Plus overview

• Nottinghamshire has been selected as one of eight
  pilot sites in the Country and the only one in
  the East Midlands
• 8 million programme over 2 years
• Nottinghamshire granted over 1million to improve
  services for older people over two years for Link
  Age Plus
• Although each pilot is different, reflecting the
  needs of local older people, there are common
  themes

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Our key priorities

• Accessible gateways to high quality information
  and advice
• Resource Centres
• Community Outreach Advisors
• Joint Teams
• Home Improvement Agencies
• Traders Register
• First Contact
• 50plus Website

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Key priorities continued

• Investing in preventative services which were
  identified by local older people
• Shopping
• Gardening
• Handyperson
• Quick and speedy minor adaptations
• Transport to access services through a taxi
  voucher scheme

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More Key priorities

• Capacity building for the voluntary sector and
  engagement of older people
• Work with Volunteering Nottinghamshire to
  recruit older people to volunteer
• Computer training older people teaching their
  peers new skills
• Volunteers to work with the PCT to provide a post
  intermediate care project
• Senior peer mentoring older people encouraging
  their peers to take part in activities
• Older people trained as researchers to find out
  what services are really like through mystery
  shopping and one to one interviews with users of
  Link Age Plus services
• Monitoring so we can lean if we are successful

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What do you need in place to make it work?

• Doing what older people want
• Ownership by partners
• Political sign up
• Sustainable financial resources
• Dedicated project management time to oversee a
  programme of change
• Explicit links with local community and corporate
  priorities

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What do you need in place to make it work?

• Leadership and working across boundaries
• Engagement of older people from the beginning
• Not getting bogged down in problems but finding
  solutions
• Working in partnership with the voluntary sector
  and drawing on each others strengths

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Challenges

• All organisations need to deliver core services
  and prevention can be seen as not essential
• What older people need isnt always what funders
  are prepared to invest in
• Balance of improving advice and information and
  at the same time investing in services
• A quick but fair commissioning process
• Supporting organisational change
• Demonstrate effectiveness
• Mainstreaming no long term sources of funding

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What older people think

• Havent got time to go to the doctors today!
  Im eating better, swapping recipes and having a
  proper meal with friends. Its better than any
  bottle of tonic! Activity Friends
• After your help with my benefits, I can now buy
  presents for my grandchildren Joint Team
• We have always worked to pay for what we need
  and dont like asking for help. People dont
  know what is out there and I am amazed at what is
  available. First Contact