After years of steady increase, the last two years have seen life expectancy and healthy life expectancy decrease for both men and women. This means more people living more of their lives with illness and disability. It also means greater pressure on already stretched public health and social care services.
This Roundtable event provided an opportunity for our colleagues across the Live Longer Better Active Partnership network to share their local insight of how they are supporting healthy active ageing within their own localities. We were also joined by a range of expert speakers providing a national update on their strategic priorities and endeavours, to address these critical issues and consider how to enable and support people to live longer lives, in good health.
The event provided a collaborative opportunity for many people across a variety of sectors and places around the country, to come together to explore how to expedite the benefits of active ageing through having a shared understanding of our individual and collective strengths. Lively discussions explored opportunities for change. There was a huge amount of appetite and energy in the room to move on this agenda, with a resounding agreement that in order to achieve these keystone changes, we are much stronger together!
The event was facilitated by our Learning and Evaluation Partners: Ruth Ball (Centre for Public Impact) and Andy Brogan (Easier Inc). We are very grateful for our expert speakers who presented on the day:
- Charlene Simon, DHSC National Programme Manager - Physical Activity
- Michelle Roberts, Richmond Group of Charities, Physical Activity and Health Programme Lead.
- Dr Amit Arora, Vice President British Geriatrics Society and Creator, National Reconditioning Games
- Professor John Deanfield, UCL Professor of Cardiology and Government Champion for Personalised Prevention
- Professor Scarlet McNally, Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon at East Sussex Healthcare Trust
And of course, our huge thanks go to Sir Muir Gray who as always led the room with huge energy and inspiration to ensure we now drive this on to ‘Live Longer Better’.
