How we help: Wellbeing

We put people in control of the care they receive, whilst sharing best practice to improve services.

Our work in 2015/16

We deliver and work to transform wellbeing services. Most of our wellbeing work involves support for local Age UKs that deliver local services such as fitness classes, befriending services, and workshops that help older people get online.

We fund some local Age UK services through restricted grants. Age UK runs Call in Time, our national telephone befriending service and our Gifted Housing Scheme.

We tackle loneliness

Nearly one million older people say they are always or often lonely, according to an Age UK survey in 2016. Loneliness blights lives and undermines health and resilience, and an ageing population means many more will be affected unless we act now.

Our Testing Promising Approaches to Reducing Loneliness programme is working with local Age UKs to pilot new kinds of services that tackle loneliness. We are testing different services to find out what works, and have learnt a lot so far about the crucial role of local businesses when it comes to signposting people to support.

Help us combat loneliness

We help older people to use local wellbeing services

We designed our Wellbeing Coordinator pilot to see whether an adapted version of our Person-Centred Integrated Care Programme could help older people with moderate care needs.

We have worked with four local Age UKs to help 469 older people use local services that help them achieve goals important to them. Most people wanted practical help at home, financial and benefits advice and access to wellbeing services and social activities.

After his wife died and he found himself on his own, Roy joined Age UK's telephone befriending service.

How one call a week can make a difference

We provide home energy checks 

Thanks to £3m of funding, Age UK has worked in partnership with over 100 local Age UKs to deliver winter warmth programmes.

These programmes include free home checks to assess the energy efficiency of older people’s homes and how they are using their heating systems. As part of the check, the handyperson might install items such as draught excluders and radiator foils to help older people save money.

How to heat your home efficiently