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Supporting older people

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Supporting older people

With an ageing population increasing the pressure on NHS services, CPPE is running a campaign and has launched a distance learning programme to help pharmacy professionals tackle the issue

The UK is ageing by five hours each day.1 There are 11m people over 65 years of age and three million over 80 years, and that number is continuing to rise.2 This ageing population, living with increasingly complex health needs, is increasing the pressure on current NHS services – so we need to look at ways to do things differently.

Take 'The Challenge'

CPPE’s ‘Supporting older people’ campaign comprises six weeks of challenges. The first was an e-challenge quiz focusing on older people. This is being followed by a further five weeks of challenges for the whole pharmacy team (which are currently ongoing), which include improving consultation skills, providing enhanced care and support around end-of-life, becoming a Dementia Friend, and providing support for carers.

In addition, all pharmacy professionals in England will have been sent a copy of CPPE’s new distance learning programme on older people. This allows users to reflect on their current practice and determine whether they are able to meet these challenges by providing compassionate, person-centred care for all older people they come into contact with, helping them to stay healthy, independent and out of hospital.

The programme enables users to update their knowledge on the changes to physical and mental health that come with ageing and the impact of these changes on both health and medicines use.

It looks at ways that pharmacy teams can interact with the wider health and social care teams to improve health outcomes for older people and to support older people to live independently for as long as possible by managing polypharmacy and optimising medicines use.

How can you get involved?

  • Take part in the weekly challenges with your team
  • Complete the distance learning programme and linked assessment
  • Share your actions and successes with CPPE using #olderpeople on Twitter or by posting on the CPPE England Facebook page.

You can find more details about the campaign on the news pages of the CPPE website.

References

  1. Redding D et al. I’m still me: a narrative for coordinated support for older people. UCL Partners, National Voices and Age UK. 2014.
  2. Age UK. Later life in the UK. 2015
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