A better life: Alternative approaches from a service user perspective

of different backgrounds, identities and experience. We asked people what could be learnt from the experiences of service users and disabled people that might help find a way to ensure older people, particularly those seen as having ‘high support needs’, a better quality of life. This is what people told us:

• Our society is ageist. It does not treat old people well or equally. It often ignores their human and civil rights. We see this everywhere, in the language that is used, in health care and in social care and more broadly in attitudes and arrangements in society. People have sometimes been and sometimes still are treated like this as disabled people, but we came together and demanded change. Being able to talk to each other and do things together made us stronger. Older people include many disabled people. But as a group, older people are not given enough chances to meet each other and more needs to be done to help them to form their own groups and find their own voices.

• As service users and disabled people, we know how important access is. Older people need access too. Access to services, to support, to transport, to amenities, a social life and access to money. Access to such things, however, tends to be reduced as people grow older and many public policies tend to make this worse rather than better.

There are many public policies and laws which make things more difficult for older people rather than better. Sometimes this is not intentional, but it happens. For example, if you look after your parents and they die you might have to give up your home because of inheritance tax.

• It can be unhelpful to draw sharp distinctions between older people and other groups of service users because many of the problems they face are shared and solutions can be transferrable.

• The ‘level of support’ an older person needs is affected by how supportive mainstream policies and services make local life and communities. The need for ‘support’ is not simply a personal characteristic. It depen ds on the nature of the society and communities we live in. Policies which are detrimental to the needs of older people also often work badly for other groups too.

• There is a serious shortage of fully accessible housing in Britain. This has a bearing on the scale of older people’s need for alternative support and housing.

• If older people are to be able to make real choices about what kind of support and accommodation they prefer to live in, then they will need an initial level of capacity-building or personal empowerment to be able to think through what might be best for them individually.

• Older people are an incredibly heterogeneous group. They vary widely in terms of income and expectations as well as in relation to equality issues. Taking full account of cultural issues relating to equalities is key to offering a wide range of alternatives. Where someone’s identity means that they may face more than one form of jeopardy, for example, as a lesbian older person, the barriers are disproportionately magnified and they may face a ‘double jeopardy’.

• There are many ideas for making things better for older people. These include:
− KeyRing communities, where people living near each other are supported to look out for each other and have a support worker.
− Overseas holidays and cruises as cost-effective means of offering supportive accessible living which could be in more supportive climates and environments.
− Cooperatives, where people have their own houses and are independent but where they could get support and help.
− House sharing, where older people could be put in touch with other people to share their house and offer accommodation in exchange for support.
− Telecare systems, which could be used to support older people in their own homes. People were, however, worried that they might be used to replace contact with ‘real’ people as a cost-saving measure.

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