Keeping older people ‘Home Safe and Well’ after Covid

This Friday is the International Day of Older People, highlighting a group of people who, worldwide, have been more impacted than almost any other group by the global pandemic.   

In partnership with British Red Cross, Cyrenians are opening up the conversation on how service providers can support older people in Edinburgh to remain at 'Home Safe and Well' for as long as they wish to do so.  

The Edinburgh service landscape for older people is vast and covers a range of contexts and settings. For the purpose of Home Safe and Well, we’re focusing our conversations on upstream, preventative services, particularly services which are community based and focus on supporting older people to remain at home or return quickly after a spell in hospital.  So many of us have radically diversified the way we deliver our services during the pandemic, with positive effects, shifting to . 

 At Cyrenians we are keen to maintain the momentum of change, and to do that we’re asking people involved in the sector to think about the question; 

"How can we work together to bring about transformational change after a global pandemic, and in doing so maximise our opportunities to support older people to remain at home safe and well?" 

We’ve been collecting consultation responses over the last two months, exploring what’s working well in the current landscape, what’s missing, what challenges older people are facing in accessing support, and what key learnings we can carry forward from the pandemic to make sure we can support people as effectively as possible. 

If you are someone who’s involved in the sector, whether as a service user or worker, we would love to hear from you about the lessons to take forward from Covid. Fill out our consultation questionnaire here.

Thoughts and themes from this consultation will inform the agenda for a November event, where colleagues from across the sector will be able to meet, discuss key themes, and identify next steps to strengthen support and prepare for coming challenges for older people.

Findings from this conversation will be shared widely, as well as specifically being used to help shape sector-wide design of funding and procurement programmes.  There is significant appetite for system change as we move through the pandemic and towards a post-COVID world, and we believe we can support transformational change through working together to better understand the needs of older people. This information will help build effectiveness in services supporting them to live valued and dignified lives at home for as long as they wish to do so. 

Be part of the process. Complete the questionnaire, and we'll be in touch to invite you to our discussion event in November to explore findings and next steps.