Minister for Mental Health and Older People Jim Daly, TD, today (Thursday) launched the third National Positive Ageing Stakeholder Forum. Local and national groups and organisations representing older people in Ireland attended, including Age Friendly Ireland, the Institute of Public Health, Third Age, ALONE, Irish Senior Citizen's Parliament and Age Action, amongst many others. The continued commitment of those who attended and participated is instrumental to the success of the Stakeholder Forum.
The main focus of the Forum was one of collaboration, co-design, and co-production. The Department continues to work on key priorities for older people that have been identified through the engagement of stakeholder groups, local Government and state agencies, and this work will progress over the coming year.
Priorities identified include:
· Living Well in the Community; a broad theme addressing community engagement, issues related to housing and connectivity of health services
· Health Literacy; which encompasses improving people’s access to health information, better understanding of how to positively influence health and is a whole-of-society approach to improving health
· Transport for older people; a topic that is important across Ireland, as having access through good transport encourages and facilitates good engagement in communities, enables access to healthcare services and promotes connectedness.
Tremendous work has been done across the country through the engagement of older people’s representative groups, local government and of course older people themselves in furthering the National Positive Ageing Strategy. I would encourage all of the representatives present to take your learning from the presentations and discussions forward with you into the workshops taking place today. This should help with devising achievable actions that can be focused on as we move forward into 2020
- Minister for Mental Health and Older People Jim Daly, TD.
Minister Daly thanked everybody for attending the forum and asked them to embrace the opportunities which were identified on the day.
Notes to the editor:
The National Positive Ageing Stakeholder Forum is an opportunity for people working with and for older people on programmes and initiatives that promote ageing well, to collaborate with the Department of Health on issues relating to positive ageing in Ireland. The Stakeholders are encouraged to share their experiences of what is working well, to engage in collaborative work with others and to help identify key priorities on the issues that older people in Ireland are currently facing.
There has been evidence of positive collaborative work over the past year, since the previous Stakeholder Forum. This has seen the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government welcome positive input from stakeholders in the development of a redesigned application form for the Housing Adaptation Grant. This process will ensure that the application form is more accessible.