Blog: Together, we’re shaping the future of our health services

What was the Older People’s Sounding Board set up for? What is its mission? And what will success look like?

Tony Watts OBE is a partner of the NHS Older People’s Sounding Board, which we facilitate on behalf of NHS England. In this blog, Tony shares some insights from some of the Board members.

Who? There are 25 members of the NHS England Older People’s Sounding Board, carefully chosen from an application list of several hundred older people from right across England.

Why? They have been selected because of their willingness to share their lived experiences; their ideas and opinions; their commitment to make a positive difference to our health and care services; and because, between them, they comprise a truly diverse and representative section of the people who use NHS services.

What? The group meet with clinicians and NHS managers who have a duty to involve people and communities to understand how to improve the delivery of services. The Sounding Board combine to create listening opportunities where their experiences and ideas can be explored. The Board’s role is to feed back their opinions on what works and what doesn’t… and suggest ways that might work better. They also identify things they want to see action on.

Where and when? Each quarter, the groups meet either online or in person.

Who manages this process? The National Development Team for Inclusion (NDTi) hosts the board on NHS England’s behalf.

Why is this work so important? Running these discussions is not just about fulfilling statutory duties to listen to service users. The NHS faces huge challenges, with limited resources to meet the increasing needs of an ageing population.

Managers, commissioners and clinicians recognise that to rise to these challenges they need to speak directly with patients, older people, unpaid carers and communities. Finding ways to combine, do things more efficiently and more effectively… and older people represent the single biggest user group.

In the words of Prof Chris Whitty in the Chief Medical Officer’s annual report 2023: health in an ageing society: “There are many things we can do to improve health and independence of older citizens if we are systematic about it. This will, however, require active decisions and actions by individuals, government and health professionals.”

Here are the views of some of our Board members:

• “They all live in a very different world from us and we offer a very different perspective.”
• “I’m here to put across the perspective of older LGBTQ+ people.”
• “I know that sharing our views and experiences on how can we improve the NHS can produce results.”

You can read more about what they want to see actioned and what their wishes are for the future.

What sort of topics are discussed? This is the seventh year of the Sounding Board, and recent meetings have seen it covering topics that go right to the heart of the services that affect older people, including:

* NHS Long Term Plan

* Older carers, unpaid workload, improving communication

* Life-course conversations, overhauling annual health checks

* Joining up Health and Social Care - Older People’s Voice in Integrated Care Boards

* Cultural competency – getting age and race on the agenda

* Mental health and ageing – e-learning on coping with depression

* Language of Health

* Living with frailty

* Social prescribing, who’s benefitting, volunteering and ‘the part we play’

* Going digital – introducing virtual wards

What does the future hold? And what will success look like? In the months ahead, we are looking to influence the development of the NHS 10-year plan and engage with more key personnel from throughout the sector to make joined-up age-friendly services across local health, social care, voluntary and private sectors a reality.

Success will include the voice of Sounding Board members being listened to and heard, their contributions recognised, and evidence shared of their influencing improvements to meet the needs of older people living with multiple health conditions.

An image of a diverse group of older people saying what they want for the future.