Brighton & Hove charities pull together to help thousands of older people through the pandemic

Brighton & Hove’s unique Ageing Well service, which has been nationally recognised as an excellent model for keeping older people healthy and active, wasted no time stepping up to the challenges the COVID-19 pandemic brought for older people across the city. As lockdown eased, services were adapted to enable small group meetings, but preparations were made for the eventuality of a second lockdown. Now, the service is continuing to support Brighton’s older population through this difficult time as we head into further restrictions over winter.

Caroline Ridley from Impact Initiatives said: “We have achieved so much already but are not resting yet. As restrictions reduced we re-introduced small group meetings, outdoors where possible and also one to one doorstep meetings. Groups have visited older people at home to perform music on their doorstep or in gardens of flats so people could enjoy the performance through their windows. They proved a huge success and lifted spirits for days afterwards. Alongside this we made plans in preparation for another lockdown and also for the eventuality of more people needing to self-isolate in the colder months.”

At the start of the crisis, the partnership of nine organisations led by Brighton & Hove based charity Impact Initiatives, pooled their resources to adapt how they usually work, in order to ensure older people across the City got the support they needed to maintain connections with the outside world whilst keeping safe at home.

When centres and cafes closed their doors and volunteers were no longer able to visit people at home the effects were potentially devastating. The Ageing Well partners were determined to do as much as they could to minimise the detrimental impact on the city’s vulnerable older people and quickly met to work out how they could use their skills, knowledge of the city and its people, teams of volunteers and other resources to combat the isolation, loneliness and practicalities of older people and their carers needing to stay home.

The need for support to ensure access to food was instantly apparent so a major operation led by the Brighton and Hove Food Partnership swung into action as part of the City Council’s COVID-19 response. During the pandemic they delivered food to thousands of people each week whilst other organisations had volunteers out each day collecting shopping and, when necessary, prescriptions for others

Impact Initiatives and Time to Talk Befriending took the lead on ensuring people unable to cook were also catered for through delivering tasty and nutritious low cost meals across the city. Emily Kenward, CEO at Time to Talk, said “Mark, who is aged 87, told us he wasn’t eating properly and felt really unwell. He said the meals were quite literally a life-line.”

In addition, phone trees and individual phone calls were set up so hundreds of older people received weekly or daily telephone calls to check in and provide contact with the outside world. These continue today. Mary, aged 98, told us that receiving a phone call from a volunteer was the highlight of her week. She said “despite the difficulties, we always end up laughing. It is a true tonic.”

Online exercise classes, quizzes and live music performances were set up by the team at the Hop 50+ centre with over 130 now taking part. George, who took part, told us “the sessions through Zoom are nothing short of life-savers. I write this as someone who is living in isolation – I feel cut off from the rest of society, family and friends, while at the same time feeling lonely and afraid.”

The teams have been very aware that many older people do not have internet access. At the very start of the pandemic, a volunteer from the Woodingdean Art Group posted projects through letterboxes, and Impact Initiatives developed and continue to post over 300 activity packs each week, giving an activity a day to keep minds and bodies active. Hazel, who was one of the first to sign up for these, told us it made a real difference to her: she said “it is lovely to get something good in the post, I have learned a lot and now check outside my window each morning and keep a diary of the changes Spring is bringing.”

Caroline Ridley from Impact Initiatives said “this really has been a time of pulling together. Local businesses have been generous, particularly with donations of food. Local trusts who have supported us in the past have given us grants to cover some of the additional costs. We have supported each other in the complexities of furloughing staff and applying for government small business grants which literally saved some of us financially. Despite this fundraising is a major ongoing challenge and we need more funding to continue meeting our aim of making sure no older person in our city is left adrift without support and connections as we move through this incredibly traumatic and unprecedented time.

Caroline added, “Over the last few months we have produced directories of services available which have been invaluable to both individuals and organisations, we continue to update these weekly, including options on food deliveries for people unable to go out. Working with Brighton and Hove City Council we have increased the capacity of our Single Point of Contact phone line to ensure help is always at hand and older people get to the right support at the right time for them. We will continue to review and develop the services and do whatever it takes to make sure we are here to help.”

Brighton and Hove joined the WHO Global Network of Age-friendly Cities and Communities in 2013 and is a member of the UK Network of Age-friendly Communities.