Age UK believes every older person should be valued and included. We’re working locally, nationally and internationally to change the way we age.
Together with our partners, we’re changing the day-to-day experience of getting older through essential services and local support – like help at home, exercise classes and digital inclusion. Local Age UKs deliver these services, using their expert knowledge of their area to transform older people’s health, wellbeing and finances.
Our specialist, impartial advice is changing how older people feel when they face a challenging issue – whether it’s care, money, health or housing. A call to our free advice line, a visit to our website, or a face-to-face appointment at a local Age UK can help change older people’s worries into answers.
Our friendship services are changing the issue of loneliness among older generations. From weekly chats on the phone and local in-person befriending to round the clock support from our Silver Line Helpline, we’re changing loneliness and isolation into comfort and connection.
We’re an expert voice on ageing, changing the way older people are treated and represented in society through research and campaigning. We work with local and national policymakers to challenge inequalities and push for the changes that’ll improve older people’s lives.
Outside the UK, our sister charity Age International is changing the global situation for older people in low and middle-income countries facing emergency situations, and through long-term development work.
So we are the Age UK Network; a collaboration of local, national, and international partners, all working towards a shared vision and future for older people. We exist as a community of partners to make life better for older people. We are available for older people to turn to, in their homes, in their communities, on the phone and online. Every day, millions of older people face an unrelenting struggle. Some live in poverty, with little to call their own. Many are in poor health, often coping with multiple conditions. An alarming number are not getting the care they need and rely on the help of family and friends. Others just don’t have the luxury of a support network at all, going for days, weeks or even months without connecting with another person.
But it doesn’t have to be like this. Just as charities in the area of Cancer and Mental Health have begun to change attitudes in their areas, we believe the time has come for us to tackle what is, for some, the biggest and undoubtedly the most unaddressed stigma of our culture: Age.
We are passionate about celebrating older people’s vital but often under-valued contribution to society – as citizens, as volunteers, as grandparents, as carers, as workers and as employers. For many, Age UK is an extension of their voice, speaking out on the issues that matter in parliament, in the press and to businesses. On our own, and by harnessing our convening power as one of the largest charities, we have successfully influenced policy makers and parliamentarians on major policy agendas throughout successive governments. We have a high media profile and, over many years, have earned our reputation as a fierce yet collaborative campaigner for system-wide social care reforms.
The Age UK network comprises over 120 organisations, including three national partners in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and local partners across England and Wales. They are individual charities operating within a partnership agreement, and between us, we support over one million people every year.
Our Influence
We improve health and care services Millions of older people are waiting for care right now. Hundreds of thousands are stuck on waiting lists for support, or even just waiting to have their needs assessed.
We campaign for change nationally, but also think it is vital that we work to improve how local health and care services are delivered and commissioned. This is especially so given the crucial role our Local and National Network Partners play as providers of services to hundreds of thousands of older people. However, we know that our Local and National Network Partners face huge levels of demand while having to compete fiercely for ever-diminishing funding.
We help with accessing benefits following some very successful fundraising this year, we have been able to expand our excellent new National Benefits Team. Together, this team has already identified benefits and supported Attendance Allowance claims worth over £30 million for older people.
We campaign and research It is vital that the voices of older people are heard by those who have the power to make decisions that affect them. Our public policy and research expertise, what we hear from older people and our thousands of campaigners, coupled with insights from across our network, enable us to spearhead powerful campaigns on the issues that matter most to older people.
Our Crucial Services
We provide information and advice Providing independent, impartial, and expert information and advice is what Age UK and the Age UK Network is best known for and what people expect us to provide. It sounds simple, but when it is done right, it can be life changing. The Age UK Advice Line, based in Lancashire and Devon, provides this service 7 days a week, 365 days a year, with local partners providing huge amounts of face-to-face support too. By speaking to older people, day-in day-out, both nationally and locally, as a network we are constantly learning about the challenges older people face, which helps to shape our campaigns, programmes, and services.
We offer friendship 1.4 million older people are lonely and as part of our work to tackle loneliness and isolation, our Friendship telephone service has seen huge expansion since its conception with over 4000 volunteers offering friendship over the phone to older people, following some careful matching by our expert team. As well as this, our 24-hour Silver Line Helpline, based in Lancashire, offers friendship, conversation and support for older people.
We deliver wellbeing services and programmes Our research tells us how feeling well can make a real difference to the lives of older people. As part of our work to help people to age well, we work in partnership with our Local Network Partners to develop, deliver and test new services which can address obstacles to wellness that many older people face, whether that is through loneliness or isolation or a lack of opportunities on offer in their communities.
How Do We Achieve This?
We are local We work as part of the Age UK Network – a partnership of independent charities which includes Age UK; our National Partners: Age NI, Age Scotland (and one local Age Scotland Partner), and Age Cymru (and five local Age Cymru’s); over 120 local Age UKs in England.
We are national In the UK we help millions of people every year, providing support, companionship and advice to the older people who need our help the most. We are a strong voice, campaigning with and for older people to champion their rights, needs and wishes.
We are international We work with our subsidiary charity, Age International, to fund programmes in over 80 low and middle-income countries. Age International is a member of the HelpAge global network and the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC).
Achieving more through partnerships Acting together with like-minded charities and other organisations enables us to achieve far more for older people. In the UK we do this largely in partnership with our Local and National Network Partners and, internationally, we work through Age International’s membership of the HelpAge global network. We work together with our Partners in a range of ways and grant funding is an important part of this. For example, we co-design and deliver charitable programmes, which Age UK receives funding for and makes grants available for suitable Partners to deliver.
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You can find out more about who we are and what we do at https://www.ageuk.org.uk/
Our New and Ambitious Strategy
With Age UK’s CEO, Paul Farmer, now in post for almost two years we have worked hard to create our new vision for the future for older people.
This Autumn we launched our new charity strategy and brand for which will pave the way for our work in the coming months and years. Our new 5-year strategy is ambitious and focuses on five key areas:
- We will work shoulder to shoulder with older people to transform public attitudes,
- We will use our collective influence and expertise to tackle poverty and reduce inequalities,
- We will ensure older people’s health and social care needs are recognised and fully met,
- We will work as a strong network and partners to deliver impactful services,
- We will inspire our colleagues, volunteers, donors, supporters and local and national partners to drive forward our mission.
In developing our strategy, we considered that Covid had a profound impact on older people, as well as the current economic climate which continues to be uncertain. We also continue to see crises within the NHS and in the provision of public services for older people, such as social care.
To ensure we are fit to deliver our new ambitious strategy, we know that we are entering into a period of significant change for Age UK, setting us up for success. Our ambitions for older people are big and so too are our plans for growth, in order that we can meet the everchanging and ever-increasing needs of older people today.
This role will be pivotal in creating a single, unified strategy for income generation, building capacity and alignment, improving our engagement with data and marketing insights to make better informed decisions. We will focus, as a priority, on designing a high performing team that retains our specialist functions but drives alignment in order that we can grow.
Our senior team are key in leading on the delivery of our strategy and ambitions for older people!
How We’re Structured
We want Age UK to be a great place to work and volunteer for our 1,600+ employees and over 120,000 volunteers and campaigners. We believe that, if we engage our employees and volunteers well, ensure they are heard, valued, empowered, safe, and deeply connected to our cause, together we will be able to do so much more for older people.
