21/11/05 - Call for tailored services for older people.
Services for older people are being hampered by inadequate funding coupled with a tendency to lump everyone into one group, experts have warned.
A Guardian debate on older people and social exclusion yesterday heard calls for a "Sure Start for older people", to match the success of the one-stop shop scheme for young children.
Delegates said older people faced ageism within services and wider society and reported that there is an "inverse care law", meaning those battling the most extreme deprivation are the least likely to access services.
Government figures show that 2.1 million pensioners live in poverty, and around one third of them spend an entire week without seeing any friends at all.
Depression in the elder population is also rife, affecting one in every six people over the age of 65.
Stan Davison, chair of the Greater London Forum for Older People, who has been campaigning for older people's services since retiring 10 years ago, called for more resources to tackle social exclusion among the elderly.
He told the seminar that older people required more tailored services, rather than the blanket approach which assumes everyone over 65 has the same needs.
"I became an older person retiring from work," he said. "I thought I had reached the stage of being an older person but 10 years on I can tell you it is very different again. Being an older person brings different changes, some of which are quite dramatic."
Tessa Harding, senior policy adviser at Help the Aged, said the ageism that underpins the way older people's services are delivered needed to be challenged. "The only thing they have in common is the period in which they were born. We are talking about a generation with a 45-year span," she said.
The audience heard that that the older people's tsar, Ian Philp, will publish the details of his planned campaign to promote dignity in care early next year, to be announced after the publication of a white paper on adult care.
Source : The Guardian
