Age-friendly visit: Brighton visit Leeds to learn from Age and Dementia friendly approaches

Brighton & Hove City Council joined the WHO Global Network of Age Friendly Cities in 2013, and soon after signed up to the Alzheimer’s Society Dementia Friendly Communities.  

The city’s commitment to become an Age and Dementia Friendly city was published in its Joint Health & Wellbeing Strategy in 2019 and more recently in its new Administration’s Council Plan. In Brighton & Hove, we have seen a 28% increase in 50 – 74-year-olds and a 9.5% increase in people aged 65 years.  

This is higher than any other population group, highlighting the necessity of the Age and Dementia Friendly movements to support everyone to age well. I was recruited to align our Age and Dementia Friendly programmes. 

I reached out to Age and Dementia Friendly Leeds who have done incredible work in this area. 

Elizabeth Griffin and Rachel Standish from Leeds Older People’s Forum and Robina Ahmed from Leeds Public Health have all been a great support in our Age and Dementia Friendly journey, including sharing their business toolkit with us to adapt locally.  

In December 2023 my colleague Maxine Thomas from Ageing Well Brighton & Hove (our local programme of services and activities for people aged 50+), and I travelled up to Leeds to learn more about their Age and Dementia Friendly programme.  

Our day in Leeds started with coffee, croissants and discussions around the Leeds Age Friendly Board and Partnership, Leeds Older Peoples Forum (LOPF) and Neighbourhood Networks, with Elizabeth and Jo Volpe from LOPF and Robina, Helen Laird and David Peel from Leeds Public Health.  

We attended their Age Friendly Partnership, a quarterly meeting bringing together residents and service providers. 

It  began in great spirit with a poem from Roger Harrington, a member of the Performance Ensemble and chair of the trustees at LOPF, and was followed by table discussions and presentations from service providers, including the Women’s Walking Football team and Dance On, an organisation offering dance classes for people aged 55+. Dance On has created a free, downloadable toolkit exploring the essential ingredients for developing a dance programme. We also heard about 1,001 Stories a two-week takeover of Leeds Playhouse in April / May 2023 where older people performed, exhibited and expressed their stories of lives lived to the fullest.  

After lunch in the Tiled Hall Café at Leeds Libraries we were warmly welcomed at Richmond Hill Elderly Action’s (RHEA) Christmas party, one of their 34 Neighbourhood Networks, community-based, locally-led organisations that support older people to live independently and participate within their own communities. We then had a chance to walk around the area and visit Richmond Hill Community Centre where we discussed local challenges and the many benefits of Neighbourhood Networks with Darryl Xavier, Operations Manager for RHEA.   

We came away inspired by the enthusiasm and commitment of the Leeds Partnership, reassured that our Ageing Well service was providing similar local support to Leeds Neighbourhood Networks, and motivated to make a number of changes to our programme.  

The main changes we are introducing, have a common theme around engaging stakeholders, including:  

• Reinstating regular ‘Coffee and Conversation’ engagement events with residents and service providers. 
• A newsletter for Age and Dementia Friendly businesses.  
• Encouraging ownership of actions from members of our Age and Dementia Planning Group through various methods, such as sending out an action card about achievements and challenges to complete before meetings and a flash update at each meeting on progress and support needed.  

The visit enabled me to think more strategically about finding and acting upon opportunities to raise awareness around our Age and Dementia Friendly work. For example, this could be through an age and dementia friendly audit of a train station, making every opportunity count with promoting the business scheme, or finding the gatekeeper at the business you are hoping to recruit.  

Leeds has made great progress rolling out their business scheme to GPs and this has encouraged me to prioritise this action on our action plan. 

Our trip also illustrated to me the strength of support provided by the UK Network of Age-friendly Communities. I have worked in a number of different fields, and never before have I had the level of support provided by this network through peer calls, sharing of resources, publications, webinars, action learning, visits and so much more. And like many in the network I am often at my most inspired on a Thursday morning.  

This visit was funded through the Age-friendly Inquiry visit scheme, available to members of the UK Network of Age-friendly Communities. Find out more about joining the network.