Older People Have Their Say! Survey of Older People’s Needs in Westgate Ward, Canterbury

Although a lot of effort in the last few years has been made to address the needs of people in old age, surprisingly not much is known about the views of this age group in the Canterbury City Council area. To address this lack of knowledge, the Canterbury and District Pensioners’ Forum was funded by the Canterbury City Council to explore the needs of older people living in this area. Our Forum decided to collaborate with the University of Kent to produce a survey on the needs of older people within the District of Canterbury. During the process of the project, we decided to base the survey on the Westgate Ward in Canterbury because we felt that older people living in this area represent a good example for highlighting needs that involve ‘ordinary’ older people. This ward is quite diverse in many ways; it spreads from a semi-rural area through to town dwelling. It is not seen as an area of deprivation, thereby has not generated any special money from the Government to help with social problems in the provision of social centres, community learning, social

activities etc. Yet we know from our own experience that what may appear in many parts as fairly affluent is quite deprived of places for people to meet; and has large public housing areas with no amenities at all.

The present Government put through legislation, which said that public services should be surveyed, and the part of that legislation that we are particularly interested in is “The National Service Framework for Older People”.

That framework asks that older people are treated with dignity by NHS and Social Care organisations; and that Councils –County and District, examine existing services- housing, leisure and transport – to identify opportunities to promote health and well-being. We felt that Westgate Ward would be representative of many other areas within our District that had not received any special investment.

The work that has been done in producing this survey has been done by members of the Canterbury & District Pensioners’ Forum with help from the University of Kent. It is a survey of older people, carried out by older people. It is our work. Information generated by this project will be assisting the Forum’s work to promote important issues related to older people’s quality of life and access to health and social care services.

A comment from J.F. Kennedy we believe sums up the approach that we took at the start of this survey:

“It is not enough for a nation to have added years of life. Our object must be to add new life to those years”