The final session of the BGS Spring meeting 2006 has been organised jointly with Years Ahead - the North East Regional Forum on Ageing.

Years Ahead was launched in January 2005 and brings together organisations operating at regional level to promote partnership working on issues related to demographic change in the North East, and factors which influence the health and wellbeing of its older population, including social attitudes and perceptions of ageing.

With a population of only 2.5 million, the North East is the smallest of the nine English regions. Projections suggest that this population will not increase over the next 25 years, and may even decline slightly, while the numbers of those aged 65 and over will increase substantially in keeping with the demographic trend across the UK. This change in the age-structure of the region and the increased numbers of older people will have profound implications at many levels for the people of the North East.

Years Ahead consists of an open network of organisations. It is managed through a Partnership Board made up of representatives of older people’s groups providing geographic coverage across the North East –‘ from Tees to Tweed’, together with an equal number of representatives from regional organisations. Thus, there is representation from bodies including Age Concern, the Alzheimer’s Society, Arts Council North East, the Association of NE Councils, Department of Work and Pensions, Equality and Diversity Forum, Government Office North East, Help the Aged, NICE North East, the Regional Development Agency and Sports England NE, together with older people’s organisations including Elders Councils, National Pensioners Convention, NE Pensioners Association, NE Older People’s Advisory Group, and related groups.

This powerful alliance is working to ensure common understanding, at regional level, of the key issues and trends around ageing and demographic change. It provides a platform to review and inform regional strategies, to ensure consistency of approaches to ageing and older people. Years Ahead will monitor the impact of demographic change and promote partnership working across sectors. Much of the work is being done by Task Groups and the first series of these includes ‘Implications of Demographic Change’; ‘Productive Ageing/Worklessness in the 50+ Age Group’; ‘Arts and Older People’; and ‘Older People and the Research Agenda’. The Forum will share and promote best practice, and encourage the involvement of older people in, for example, planning and political processes and the research required to inform and implement effective regional strategies. Years Ahead has its administrative office in the Institute for Ageing & Health at Newcastle University and this synergy between academia and the Forum is particularly timely given major initiatives by government including the ‘Northern Way’ and the designation of Newcastle as a ‘Science City’, where ageing and health form an important strand.

Health was identified by the members of Years Ahead as the most important single issue for older people and this theme will be taken up at the BGS Spring meeting. Entitled ‘Improving the Health and Welfare of Older People: Some Wider Perspectives’, the symposium has an outstanding list of speakers under the chairmanship of Lord Sutherland and will span topics from the implications of current basic research on ageing, to issues such as ‘Work and Pensions’, and ‘Life-long learning’. The meeting has already caused tremendous interest amongst older people in the North East, and ‘Years Ahead’ looks forward to welcoming members of the British Geriatrics Society to the Sage Centre on Saturday 8th April 2006.

Jim Edwardson
Wolfson Research Centre
Institute for Ageing and Health, Newcastle General Hospital