Good Practice

This page contains links to good practice in designing holistic serivces to meet the needs of local older people.

• Developing local area agreements
• The benefit of joined-up approaches to delivering services
• Older people’s shared priority
• Action to prevent the need to provide higher level and more intensive care

Developing local area agreements

• The complete National Indicator Set for local authorities and local authority partnerships on the Communities and Local Government website
• Guidance about Negotiating New Local Area Agreements on the Communities and Local Government website
• Operational guidance on the Development of the new Local Area Agreements framework on the Communities and Local Government website
• A range of publications about the new Performance Framework, Partnership and Local Area Agreements on the Communities and Local Government website, explaining how they can support local authorities
• Final report on Local Area Agreement dry-run negotiations on the Communities and Local Government website
• Local Area Agreements: a resource guide on the Local Government Association website supports implementation of the new Local Area Agreements and offers a wide range of opportunities to develop skills, understanding and capacity.

The benefits of joined-up approaches to delivering services

• LinkAge Plus pilots aim to provide older people with access to a wide range of more integrated, joined-up services across housing, transport, health and social care, winter warmth, work and volunteering opportunities

Older people’s shared priority

• Improving the quality of life for older people was one of seven shared priorities agreed between central government and the Local Government Association (LGA). Some 50 local authorities and their partners participated in the shared priority work, through action learning sets. The work ran from September 2004 to April 2006. There are a range of guides on the I&DeA website identifying the lessons learnt, valuable and timely examples, tools and insights. These will help to implement the vision for modernising older people's services.
• This built on extensive earlier reports by the Audit Commission, which recommended a new approach to independence and wellbeing in later life, which remains highly relevant

Actions to prevent the need to provide higher level and more intensive care

• The Department of Health's Partnerships for Older People Projects test and evaluate innovative approaches to integrated care and encourage investment in preventative approaches which promote health, well being and independence for older people
• Promoting independence self-assessment tool which allows local authorities and health communities to work out their strengths and areas for further work on this agenda, based on the learning from the POPP (Partnerships for Older People Projects) programme
• Predicting who will need costly care a study by the King’s Fund, providing tools to identify people who are at low or emerging risk of intensive social care, aimed at maintaining or improving their ability to live independently
• Projecting Older People Population Information (POPPI) a free web-based forecasting system from the Care Services Efficiency Delivery Programme which puts all the necessary data together in one place to help improve capacity planning