Appendix 1

 

PEOPLE SCRUTINY REVIEW OF HEALTHY AGEING – Action Plan 6 Month Review

 

 

 

 

 

 

SCRUTINY RECOMMENDATION

DIRECTOR’S RESPONSE AND ACTION PLAN

Update Notes

TIMESCALE

RAG

(red, amber, green rating)

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.

 

The Getting East Sussex Moving campaign toolkit continues to be shared across physical activity partners across the county, and our local active partnerships disseminate the toolkit to their members which include the funded activity providers.

 

Between October 2024 and May 2025, the campaign has featured themes that link to the healthy ageing agenda, such as being active through walking, being active with disabilities, cancer, long term conditions and being active for mental health.

 

Each month’s toolkit has included messaging and imagery which directly targets and communicates to the ageing population in the county, and signposts them towards local sessions and knowledge information for support, on our Getting East Sussex Moving webpage – which has also undergone a redesign to improve its usability.

 

The campaign is being evaluated in-house.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

October 2024 to August 2025

 

 

 

 

 

September 2024 to August 2025

 

 

September 2024 to August 2025

 

 

 

 

 

By August 2025

Green

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.

 

Active Sussex officer is seconded into ASCH Strategic Development team one day a week to Dec 2025. Progress across the last 6 months includes supporting the development of the Adult Social Care Prevention Strategy, that highlights the importance of physical wellbeing and has enabled Active Sussex working with partners to achieve the following -

Stronger for Life Project and Strength and Balance activity -  We have invested £53,302 into 23 local Stronger for Life projects to support improved strength and balance activity, across targeted areas of East Sussex where there are identified gaps in strength and balance exercise programs.  Active Sussex are a member of the new Healthy Ageing Partnership Group, are actively contributing to workstreams to support falls prevention, including the development of a new East Sussex Community Falls Awareness Campaign for the autumn. The campaign will aim to encourage adults to maintain their strength and balance activity and signpost to existing Stronger for Life sessions.

Workforce Capacity Building: To build long-term capacity, staff across Adult Social Care and Health services have been offered the  "Helping People Become More Active" workshop as part of the Active Medicine Programme. A ‘train-the-trainer’ model is being used so the learning can be delivered widely and sustainably. 60–80 care staff across Sussex have taken part in these workshops to date.

 

Care Home Activity Review: In response to concerns that some care homes may not be offering their residents opportunities to be active since the pandemic, we engaged care homes to understand physical activity provision and attitudes in care homes. Actions from this have been included in the E Sussex Care Home Actions plan, to help encourage care homes to offer physical activity.

 

Align and Enhancing Systemwide Resources: Supporting ongoing initiatives including the Stroke Reconditioning Project (phase one) which has been completed. This was an innovative approach of bringing health instructors into the hospital setting at the Bexhill Irvine Unit for 2 sessions per week over 26 weeks. Partnerships have been established with providers in Wealden, Rother, Hastings, Eastbourne, and Lewes, ensuring a smooth transition into community-based sessions as part of the ongoing recovery.  A second phase will provide a further 6 months programme in the Bexhill Irvine Unit, and increase access by live screening into additional units and acute wards across East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust and Universities Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust.

By December 2025

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Green

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.

 

 

1) An active partnership has been established for the Eastbourne and Lewes area, and has conducted regular quarterly meetings with over 50 physical activity partners attending regularly. The partnership has launched small grants funding, and to date has funded two projects specifically for older adults – pickleball in the community and seniors strength and balance classes.

 

2&3) The East Sussex Healthy Weight Partnership has concluded insights on the plan, which collected residents views on healthy weight. Older age was recognised by residents as a barrier for physical activity. The report has generated a number of recommendations to support residents to be more active, which will be published in July and the Healthy Weight partnership will work to implement these recommendations.

 

4) The active partnerships continue to meet regularly, and had a session focussed on healthy ageing in November 2024, to consider what further work could be done to support older adults across the county. Work continues with the Active Partnerships to support falls prevention through provision of physical activity and strength and balance opportunities, e.g. in Stronger for Life and through considering opportunities to provide intergenerational activities.

 

5) A physical activity workforce survey and engagement exercise is to be conducted by end of September 2025, which will inform the development and delivery of a county-wide workforce development programme, to support the workforce to access CPD to improve and increase physical activity delivery. An analysis of skills will be considered to understand any gaps in workforce delivering specialist exercise interventions for older people.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Initiated and ongoing

 

Initiated, by March 2025

 

 

 

 

 

By May 2025

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By June 2025

 

 

 

 

 

 

Initiated and ongoing.

Green

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 (HAPG), to discuss and explore opportunities to encourage intergenerational activities across the health and care system

 

Review of intergenerational (IG) activity in East Sussex - has been completed, highlighting the many positive wellbeing benefits for older and younger generations. A snapshot of good activities and good practice were identified in E Sussex, including an amazing IG charity Young@Heart in Heathfield.

 

The learning has informed future recommendations and priorities to help encourage further IG activity provision in East Sussex, including;

1- Develop an IG toolkit – In partnership with local organisations, such as Young@Heart, with experience of providing IG activities to help people set up new intergenerational activities.

2- Explore opportunities to provide new IG activities - with members of the HAPG, e.g. food and cookery activities with our Food Partnerships, and activity opportunities with our Active Partnerships.

3 – Seek to identify further funding - to enable the provision of a small grants scheme to seed fund the start-up of new IG activities.

 

Learning from the scrutiny review has been shared with the HAPG, and some members are actively supporting the development of the new priorities above. 

Ongoing

 

 

 

 

 

 

By April 2025

 

 

 

Green

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.

 

 

ESCC interest to sign up to the AFE pledge - A proposal, for the council to join the AFE pledge, was taken to the Human Resources Management Board (HRMB) in 2024.  HRMB agreed to review their approach to addressing all protected characteristics, to inform their decision. This review has been completed and HRMB are in principle, in support of ESCC developing their own approach, rather than signing up to the many different ones available. HRMB are taking this to CMT for decision in June/July. If this approach is agreed, further work will take place to embed Age Friendly principles across polices to support the recruitment and retention and personal development of workers aged 50+, to reduce risk of age discrimination.

 

 

 

Encouraging employers in E Sussex to sign up to AFE - Work continues to encourage employers to sign up to the AFE pledge, this includes:

-       Wellbeing@work resource pack - details of the AFE pledge have been added to the Wellbeing@Work resource pack, to encourage employers to adopt best practice.

-       Case studies – we are in the process of collecting case studies from employers who have signed up to the AFE pledge, to help inform future promotions with other employers

-       Face to face promotions with employers - at the annual Wellbeing@Work awards event took place in March 2025. Employers shared low awareness of the pledge and discussions on ageism in the workplace. Many showed interest in the pledge and taking more action on improving recruitment and retention of workers aged 50+.

-       AFE webinar – Planned for employers in the Wellbeing@work network and HAPG on 17th June, as part of plans to celebrate ageing and tackle ageism for the ‘Age Without Limits Campaign Action Day’

2024 and ongoing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Jan 2026

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nov 2024

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nov 24 to April 25

 

 

 

Amber

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.

 

 

 

 

Age Without Limits Campaign - Learning from the scrutiny review has been shared with partners of the HAPG, and the initial priority agreed to help tackle ageism and celebrate ageing, was to promote the Age Without Limits Action Day on 11th June.

 

A small sub-group of partners from the HAPG representing the Age Friendly Community areas of Hastings & Rother have worked to develop and implement events and comms for the Action Day. Events planned and being delivered include:

-       Celebrate ageing & tackle ageism conversation with community members across Hastings & Rother 10th June

-       Celebrate ageing and tackle ageism event with older adults at the Broomgrove Oasis Summer retreat, Hastings on 11th June

-       Active Hastings are hosting an intergenerational fitness session for over 50’s together with children from the local nursery

-       Age Friendly Employer pledge webinar for employers in the wellbeing@work and HAPG networks on 17th June

-       Comms including Your East Sussex article, media release supported by DPH & local IG charity Young@Heart and social media have been developed and shared through HAPG and networks to raise awareness of ageism and events to celebrate the Age Without Limits Action day.

 

Ageism Awareness training – More work is needed to raise awareness of ageism, to encourage action to tackle age discrimination and encourage a more positive narrative on ageing. Ageism awareness training is offered to ASC staff quarterly, with 30 staff trained to date. HVA, a HAPG member, are planning to provide an Ageism awareness training session for community members in Hastings in Sept 2025. Public Health are exploring additional resource opportunities to commission further ageism awareness training across the county.

 

Comms within the council – Further work is needed to consider the narrative and images used on ageing by the council. This will be raised in the first instance with the councils ‘East Sussex Communications and Involvement Steering Group’ on 17th July.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

November 24 to April 25

 

 

 

 

 

May – Sept 2025

 

 

 

Ongoing

 

 

 

 

Amber

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.

 

Communications and Campaign supporting and promoting Volunteering

During the last four months we have been working with colleagues from across ESCC departments, external VCSE partners, and Tribe to develop new ways of communicating the values of volunteering, saying thank you to volunteers and promoting a range of opportunities in East Sussex.

This has culminated in a month-long June Campaign led by the ESCC Comms Teams

‘Value of Volunteering’ message promoted stories such as: Four East Sussex locals give us the low-down on volunteering

 ‘Saying Thank You’ had a social media content such as this Instagram reel.

‘Promoting Opportunities’ we are used social media, and our newsletters to let residents know to Use Tribe.

During the month of June we have also promoted specific roles such as: Volunteer Opportunity with ESCC Libraries

 

The success of the June campaign to date was built upon the learning from a January 2025 campaign.

The January campaign saw a 3,000 increase in viewing of volunteering opportunities each month following the campaign. Previously there were 1,500 views per month.

This demonstrated clearly that proactive comms and campaigns on volunteering generate an increase in interest from residents and organisations recruiting volunteers.

We are now putting together a rolling communications strategy for 2025/2026, and taking advantage of ‘themed weeks’ to promote volunteering opportunities that align to the theme, such as:

Loneliness awareness week 9-15th 

Carers week 9-15th

Refugee week 16-22nd

We have put in place feedback mechanisms that will collect residents stories on the benefits of Tribe in helping them find opportunities and also gather information from organisations that are using Tribe to promote Volunteering.

We will be able to share this in the coming months.

 

 

 

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.

Green

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.

 

Healthy Ageing Partnership Group (HAPG) – this new group was established and met for the first time in Nov 2024. The partnership meets bi-monthly and includes a broad membership across the health and care system. Learning from the scrutiny review has been shared with the HAPG and has informed the Terms of Reference, function and priorities for the group. Key initial priorities include preventing falls, due to the high emergency admissions from falls in E Sussex (Recs 1-3), being a lead voice for tackling ageism (Recs 4-6), supporting the implementation of Age Friendly Communities (R8) and improving collaboration and best use of resources for a range of important workstreams relating to ageing ,e.g. winter planning (R8).

 

Age Friendly Communities – Partnerships with Hastings Borough Council (HBC) and Rother District Council (RDC) have successfully been agreed to develop and implement plans for being Age Friendly Communities. 3 year partnership agreements are in place to provide £50k per annum with each LA, to enable them to build part-time officer capacity to lead plans for Age Friendly Communities.  This will nicely lead up to the period the new unitary for East Sussex should be commencing. RDC have an officer in post beginning to scope plans, through increasing the hours of an existing member of staff to fulfil the role, who has extensive experience of working in Public Health in E Sussex. HBC are currently out to recruitment for their new Age Friendly Coordinator. Both organisations are already active members of the HAPG and contributing to workstreams associated with the scrutiny review, as described above.

 

Ageing Well Ambassadors – We aim to explore opportunities to develop Ageing Well Ambassador as part of the Age Friendly Communities Programmes. This will include identifying funding streams to develop and manage the volunteer programme.

October 2024 - ongoing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

October 2024 onwards

 

 

 

Green