Ageing Well
The Ageing Well background
The purpose of the Ageing Well Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) section is to support the work of the Council’s Health and Wellbeing Board by summarising key local needs, and services, and providing a series of evidence-based priorities to improve the health of the population of older adults living across Milton Keynes (65 years and older). It acts as a useful reference to inform high quality and co-ordinated local commissioning and provision of services shaped to the needs of their users, as well as to inform the wider council and members of the public.1
This Chapter sets out the key needs and issues of the local population over 65, and makes a series of evidence-based recommendations to improve health and wellbeing, and to reduce inequalities. Milton Keynes City’s overall score for deprivation (using the 2019 Index of Multiple Deprivation) relative to all other local authorities in England, puts it in the third least deprived decile. Where possible, Milton Keynes City is compared to local authorities of similar deprivation (e.g. Derbyshire, Kent, Suffolk, and Reading).22
Finding the information you need
The summarised data behind the ageing well chapter can be accessed through a data dashboard. This includes over 65 population demographics and projections, Life expectancy, Mortality, Morbidity and Disability-adjusted life years, by ward where possible.
Detailed analysis
This chapter includes further analysis of the factors that impact on the health of older people and details the policies, services and actions developed to address them. This information is presented in groups according to the level of need as well as the wider determinants as follows:
Wider determinants, which includes factors relating to: family, friends and communities, housing, transport, work and employment, money and resources, deprivation, the cost of living and climate change
Healthy older age, which details the factors that promote healthy ageing including: screening, immunisation and physical activity, as well those that inhibit it. These include behaviours such as smoking and alcohol consumption, as well as those that are a more result of circumstance including loneliness and poor mental health
Intermediate need. This section focuses on issues associated with ageing that require additional short-term support to adjust to, such as sensory impairment, falls and falls prevention and the onset of and crises associated with dementia
Frail older people, which highlights the services designed to identify and meet the needs of the most vulnerable including: the frailty framework, adult social care, carers and end of life care.
Also look out for:
The impact of COVID
This includes both the direct impact of COVID on key health-related indicators, and the indirect impact on wider determinants.
Areas of continued focus
These are high level objectives that have previously been identified as priorities and that remain important to delivering better health outcomes for the older people of Milton Keynes City.
Priority actions
These are more specific requirements that are needed to bring about the changes needed to improve health outcomes for Milton Keynes City’s older population.
References
Department of Health. 2011. Joint strategic needs assessment and joint health and wellbeing strategies explained. Available at:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/215261/dh_131733.pdf [Accessed 11 December 2020].
English Indices of Deprivation 2019. [online] Available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/english-indices-of-deprivation-2019 [Accessed 18 December 2020].