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Over a million older people¹ – including one in five people over 80² – are shut out from society and ignored by government policy, according to a new report by Age Concern. The charity is warning that severe exclusion³ among older people is a significant and pressing problem that will not disappear without urgent government action.

Published today, Out of sight, out of mind shows that severe exclusion is about more than money, crossing the boundaries of social class, race, gender and financial status. New research for the charity⁴ also reveals that the risk of exclusion increases with age – leaving many older people without access to things that most people take for granted, such as a decent home, close friends and regular company, stimulating activity and access to local services.

Key research findings:

• 56% of severely excluded people aged over 50 are in poor health.
• 40% of severely excluded people aged over 50 are lonely.
• 45% of men and 34% of women over 80 who live alone are lonely, as are 62% of recently bereaved older people.
• People aged 50-64 are eight times more likely to be severely socially excluded if they rent their home privately than if they own it or pay a mortgage.
• 25% of people over 80 living in their own homes have significant memory problems – of these, one in four (26%) are severely excluded.

More than a decade after Tony Blair first put social exclusion on the political agenda,⁵ the government is still failing to help many of the most disadvantaged older people. Despite publishing A Sure Start to Later Life⁶ and promising a “lifetime” approach⁷ to the problem, the government’s current strategy on tackling social exclusion makes no mention at all of older people.⁸  The social exclusion of older people hasn’t just fallen down the Government’s list of priorities – it has dropped off it altogether.

The report warns that even policies that have helped many older people have failed to reach those facing the most severe exclusion. In fact many public services have actually got worse: funding for services to keep older people active and socially engaged has been cut in many areas; personal care in the home for people with moderate disabilities has all but ended; and post offices across the country – a lifeline for many older people – are being forced to close.

The charity is calling on the government to honour its pledge to tackle the social exclusion of older people and put the issue firmly back on its agenda.

Key report recommendations:

• Joined-up high profile leadership: there must be a cross-departmental government commitment to help the most disadvantaged older people.
• ‘Age-proof’ inclusion and renewal programmes: central and local government strategies for tackling social exclusion and neighbourhood renewal must include older people.
• Re-model local services around the needs of the most excluded: local authorities should ensure their services are joined-up, user-friendly, rooted in the community and flexible enough to reach out to vulnerable older people.

The report also profiles four groups of older people who at high risk of social exclusion, and outlines simple, low-cost proposals to improve their situation. Proposals include introducing local programmes to enhance social contact for people who are over 80 and living alone; improved support services for people who are recently bereaved; nationwide ‘handyperson’ schemes for people who are living in unfit housing; and improved support for independent advocacy for people who have limited capacity to make their own decisions.

Age Concern’s Director General, Gordon Lishman, said: “It is often said that we should judge the society we live in by the way we treat older people. How we treat the most excluded older people is even more of a litmus test and one that, sadly, the government is currently failing. Without stronger ministerial leadership, and a significant change in the mindset of policymakers and service-providers, over a million severely excluded older people will continue to suffer in silence.”

 

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Notes to editors

1. The Social Exclusion of Older People: Evidence from the First Wave of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), Social Exclusion Unit, January 2006
2. 18% of people over 80 are severely excluded – Age Concern/ UCL research, February 2008.
3. The term ‘social exclusion’ is policymakers’ jargon for being cut off from the mainstream of society.
4. Age Concern commissioned Dr Panayotes Demakakos of University College London (UCL) to analyse data from the English Longitudinal Study on Ageing (ELSA). ELSA is a recently established survey designed to track the ageing process from the age of 50. All the statistics are for England only.
5. By establishing the Social Exclusion Unit to report directly to him.
6. A Sure Start to Later Life is the Social Exclusion Unit’s (SEU) report on excluded older people, published in January 2006, which called for a new model of local, joined-up, low-intensity services, available to all but targeted at the most disadvantaged.
7. The ‘lifetime’ approach to tackling social exclusion was set out Reaching Out, the Social Exclusion Task Force’s (formally the SEU) action plan published in September 2006.
8. Reaching Out, Social Exclusion Task Force, September 2006.

For a PDF or hard copy of the report Out of sight, out of mind, please contact Helen Spinney on tel: 020 8765 7514 or email: helen.spinney@ace.org.uk.

Age Concern spokespeople are available for interview.

Below is a snapshot of comments from older people interviewed for the report – interviews with case studies may be available on request:

Rodney: “No-one wants to know you if you’ve got nothing. This loneliness is a killer. It’s worse than the fear I had of being bombed in London during the war.”

Doreen: I can go for a whole week and not speak to anyone at all in person… things are at their worse when you get poorly… No-one’s there and no-one cares if you’re ill.”

Pamela: “I’ve lived in my home since I was married 50 years ago. It was in a terrible state by the time my husband died… I was embarrassed to invite people round.”

Peter: “When you have dementia, you can be seen as a social pariah. Acquaintances would ‘pretend’ not to see me… and people stopped inviting me to dinner or events.”

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