Joining the dots: the Sounding Board’s unique opportunity to make a real difference

The unique and invaluable role that members of the NHS England’s Older People’s Sounding Board play involves not only sharing their life experiences, opinions and knowledge, writes Tony Watts OBE. It’s also demonstrating that maintaining good health and wellbeing into later life is all about “joining the dots”.

Ask older people what would keep them living independently and healthily in their own homes, and their answer won’t be “Build more hospitals”. It will be practical suggestions on how we, as an ageing population, can avoid needing to go in there in the first place, how to get out at the earliest opportunity, and how to access the care and support needed, to avoid the yo-yo-ing that is so disruptive to people’s lives and puts so many demands on our hard-pressed hospital and community-based staff.

I like to think that this is a Government that is listening: after all, as of the start of this year, we do now have a Commission on Social Care underway, led by the very able Louise Casey.

The Sounding Board now has the unique opportunity to make a real difference: to demonstrate to the professionals and clinicians seeking out our opinions and experiences just what “joining the dots” can mean… by sense-testing policies, processes and ideas aimed at improving our NHS. They have identified seven big ideas and proposed these to Change NHS. Examples include:

1. Reinvigorated annual health checks; codesigned to enable preventive health and personalised care plans arrived at in discussion between individuals and multidisciplinary teams.
2. Creating older people involving neighbourhood hubs established as central touchpoints in a continuous care cycle, connecting GPs, hospitals, and home-based care.
3. Empower Health and Wellbeing Boards to plan services based on local needs, with stronger partnerships between the NHS and community groups.

In November of last year, when the Government announced its Consultation on the Future of the NHS over the coming 10 years, leaders in the care sector responded with one voice, insisting that without “fixing social care”, it would be impossible to tackle the broader challenges facing the NHS.

Issues such as delayed hospital discharges is a case in point. In January of this year, one in seven hospital beds in England were occupied by older people waiting to go home… but unable to do so because a care package was not in place for them.

The linkage with housing is also critical. In October 2024, the Older People’s Housing Taskforce issued its report after extensive consultation within the sector and with older people’s representatives. Its very title – “Our future homes: housing that promotes wellbeing and community for an ageing population” – ample proof that the author, Professor Julienne Meyer, understood that decent, healthy homes are pivotal to preventing people becoming ill and dependent in the first place.

Simply put, health, care and housing are three legs of the same stool. The argument that I and other older people’s representatives made to the 2012 Lords report “Ready for Ageing”, and which (it seems) has finally become central to public policy.

This is not new stuff. It’s no coincidence that the huge housing programme that followed the Second World War was led by Aneurin Bevan… the Minister of Health. The primary obstacle that successive governments have faced in the intervening years is a silo approach to departmental investment and management, along with the division of responsibilities between local and national government.

That is why the NHSE Older People’s Sounding Board's role can make a fundamental difference. Crucially, by sharing our knowledge of “what works” and our ideas on “what would work better”, we can connect older people and communities with clinicians and policymakers so that, together, healthier outcomes are created for us as we age.