Appendix 1

PEOPLE SCRUTINY REVIEW OF HEALTHY AGEING
SCRUTINY RECOMMENDATION		DIRECTOR’S RESPONSE AND ACTION PLAN	TIMESCALE
R1.	The Department should use insights from this Review to strengthen content and promotion of the campaign, ‘Getting East Sussex Moving’; sharing messaging and imagery that particularly encourage and promote opportunities for older people to be active and addresses known barriers to participation.	The Department introduced the Getting East Sussex Moving Campaign Toolkit in 2023. The campaign aims to celebrate the places we can be active across the county #GettingEastSussexMoving. It is linked to Active Sussex’s strategy ‘Getting Sussex Moving’ To strengthen the campaign using insights from this review, we will: 1) Invite healthy ageing partners into the campaign steering group to ensure messaging is optimised and linked to other projects or activities (e.g. Stronger for Life funded activities). 2) Tailor the campaign themes for 2024/25 to address issues within ageing, for example messaging for people with a long-term condition, people that have had a fall etc. 3) Tailor the campaign messaging to address known physical activity barriers for this population and to rebut social norms (e.g. tendency for older people to feel a need to ‘slow down’ or undertake less activity) as well as to impart knowledge (e.g. reasons for doing strength and balance exercise). 4) Seek to build capacity to evaluate the campaign through exploring student placement opportunities.	October 2024 to August 2025 September 2024 to August 2025 September 2024 to August 2025 By August 2025
R2.	The Department should continue to work with Active Sussex to maximise opportunities to embed physical activity into Adult Social Care processes and pathways, to include but not limited to: a) Upskilling social care staff to confidently raise the issue of physical activity and signpost to physical activity opportunities; and b) Establishing sustainable Stronger for Life strength and balance sessions across clinical, community and care settings in East Sussex, particularly focusing on areas where falls are more prevalent.	There is a commitment from the Council and Active Sussex to continue to work collaboratively and co-design interventions that support the healthy ageing agenda up to and beyond the end of the current agreement.  To support this recommendation, the ongoing work will include: 1) Setting out explicitly in the East Sussex Adult Social Care Prevention Strategy, the need for all Departmental services to ensure that its is a basic right for those engaging with services to have the opportunity to move or exercise in a way that works for them, making this the norm. 2) Working with colleagues across the Council to embed movement and activity as an essential offer within agreements with providers. 3) Explore implementation of mandatory training for key job roles to support the workforce to speak more confidently about the importance of movement and activity and how residents can access local support. to achieve this. 4) Utilise an opportunity through the Active Medicine Programme for staff to be trained and then deliver the training for colleagues and services within the Department. 5) Use local insight to target Stronger for Life activities to those most at risk of falling (due to inactivity and lack of strength training, and deconditioning). 6) Work collaboratively with delivery partners to provide and evaluate  the Stronger for Life activities.	By December 2025
R3.	Continue to support the establishment and the embedding of Active Partnerships across all districts and boroughs in East Sussex, including through: a) Ensuring that the physical activity workforce is able to offer activities that support a range of abilities and health conditions; and b) Consulting older people on the types of activity that they wish to take part in.	The Active Partnership model aims to increase access and participation in physical activity, and to improve the health of people living and working in the county. They have been commissioned for all districts and boroughs in the county. These are: - Active Rother - Active Hastings - Healthy Wealden - Active Eastbourne and Lewes (partnership due to launch in October 2024) To support this recommendation we will: 1) Establish an Active Partnership for Eastbourne and Lewes. 2) Consult with older people in East Sussex and collect their views (including barriers and enablers) on physical activity through the East Sussex Healthy Weight Plan Community Engagement project. 3) Ensure that insights from the East Sussex Healthy Weight Plan Community Engagement are available at district and borough level  and shared with the active partnerships to inform future planning. 4) Share learning about engaging and working with older people at the bi-monthly Active Partnerships networking meeting, and to host a meeting focussed on the topic of healthy ageing. 5) Ensure the Active Partnerships continue to support the physical activity workforce to access development opportunities allowing them to build knowledge and confidence in working with older people.	Initiated and ongoing Initiated, by March 2025 By May 2025 By June 2025 Initiated and ongoing.
R4.	The Department should explore opportunities, including with partners, for intergenerational activities to create social connections, and tackle ageism.	ASC&H  has begun a review to understand the evidence on intergenerational activities, and initial mapping has identified a small number of intergenerational projects in East Sussex. These are mainly led by early years organisations and schools. The learning from this will be shared with the East Sussex Healthy Ageing Partnership Group, to discuss and explore opportunities to encourage intergenerational activities across the health and care system	Ongoing By April 2025
R5.	The Department should work to support people in the workplace as they age, including by: a) Progressing work with HR to explore the principles within the Age Friendly Employment Pledge to understand how these apply to existing ESCC policies; and b) Promoting the benefits of and supporting local employers to become Age Friendly Employers through its Wellbeing at Work Programme.	a) Work is ongoing to explore the feasibility of the Council signing up to the Age Friendly Employer Pledge (AFE), to demonstrate commitment, as a large anchor institution, to supporting adults to age well in work. This will include a review of current work on all protected characteristics, not just age, before considering whether to join the AFE pledge. A review of progress in embedding age friendly principles across existing policies that affect recruitment, retention and personal development of employees as they age. b) Information about Age Friendly Employers (AFE) has been promoted in the monthly newsletter and at a champions network meeting. The Council will consider other opportunities to encourage AFE. This will include: 1) Updating the wellbeing at work resource pack, to promote the AFE pledge as a good way to adopt age positive approaches in their workplace. This will support organisations working towards the optional criteria of implementing approaches to support healthy ageing at work. 2) Identifying East Sussex employer(s) who have signed up to the AFE pledge, to explore their interest to share a case study of their experience of being an age friendly employer. This will help other employers understanding of the pledge, which may encourage them to consider pledging to AFE.	2024 and ongoing By Jan 2025 Nov 2024 Nov 24 to April 25
R6.	The Department should seek to work with Departments across the Council to influence a more positive narrative of ageing in East Sussex including: a) By promoting age friendly imagery and language that engage people at different life stages and ensures people of all ages are represented when promoting a range of services; b) That the benefits of an ageing population, including contributions to caring and volunteering, are included in communications about East Sussex; and c) Supporting the development of further training on positive ageing to staff and Members.	a & b) The Council will aim to identify and share examples of good practice on the use of age positive images and language and explore opportunities to embed good practice across the Council. This will include exploring the feasibility of implementing a policy or guide for the recommended use of age positive language and images. The learning will be shared with the Healthy Ageing Partnership Group, to consider how these principles could be used across wider partnership organisations. c) The Department will seek to identify: 1) examples of good practice training to help raise awareness of ageism, and encourage more age positive practice 2) opportunities both within the Council, and with partners through the Healthy Ageing Partnership Group, to implement future training opportunities.	November 24 to April 25 May – Sept 2025 Ongoing
R 7	The Department should promote flexible volunteer opportunities that address barriers to volunteering and link people to opportunities based on their interests, ability and skills.	Work is underway with public and strategic VCSE sector partners to develop support for volunteer involving organisations that will enable them to: - Understand the barriers to volunteering - Learn how to mitigate against these barriers through designing and developing flexible volunteering opportunities. - Have access to communication channels that promote flexible volunteering opportunities to the residents of East Sussex - Have access to platforms to list volunteering opportunities, recruit volunteers, and manage volunteers. This will include ensuring that this activity is applied to volunteering opportunities for young people, people living with disabilities, working age adults, and older people. The Council and partners will work to ensure the information and learning is shared widely with external partners, both strategic and hyper-local partners. Work will be undertaken across the Council to ensure we collectively understand the barriers, mitigations and tools that can be used to address the barriers to volunteering.	This activity is ongoing through VCSE Infrastructure Support, and Tribe contracts, and will be included in new programmes that will come on line in 2025/26.
R 8	The Department should continue to strengthen partnership work to enable further development of healthy ageing workstreams across East Sussex by: a) Establishing a new multi-agency Healthy Ageing Partnership Group and sharing learning from this Review to inform future system priorities; b) Working with district and borough Councils to pilot Age Friendly Communities in East Sussex to support people to age well; and c) Exploring the use of ageing well ambassador programmes.	a) It has been agreed with the Integrated Care Board (ICB) Health Outcomes Improvement Oversight Board (HOIOB), to establish a new ‘Healthy Ageing Partnership Group’ subgroup. This will bring together stakeholders across the health and care system to develop a strategic vision for healthy ageing, and improve joint working and outcomes for healthy ageing related workstreams. The learning from this review will be shared with the new group, to help inform priorities for the group. In particular we will encourage a focus on action to support adults to remain active into older age, tackling ageism and encouraging a more positive narrative on ageing. b&c) The Council will engage with district and borough local authorities to explore potential to pilot Age Friendly Communities in their areas. This will include exploring opportunities to introduce ageing well ambassador programmes.	October 2024 - ongoing October 2024 onwards