Advance Notice

The Forum’s Winter Conference

Prospects for Better Ageing

Friday 28 October at Enfield County School

Eminent speakers include: Professor Christina Victor, Brunel Univ.; Proessor Steve Illiffe, University College Hospital: Nick Taylor, Greater London Authority; and Enfield’s Ray James, Director of Health, Housing and Adult Social Care.

The conference will examine what is and what can be done to improve the quality of life for older people and address the issue of the growing divide between a more prosperous older generation and a struggling younger generation.

 The full programme and registration form will be available in September.

The Forum’s Winter Conference being held this year on Friday, 28 October, could not be more timely. With a new Prime Minister committed to negotiate Britain’s exit from the European Union, our conference theme: Prospects for Better Ageing is bang on the ball.

Indicating her thinking just before entering Downing Street, Theresa May said: “There is a growing divide between a more prosperous older generation and a struggling younger generation” - and perhaps inadvertently giving ammunition to those who want to “unpick the Triple Lock” which guarantees an annual increase in the state retirement pension.

Abolishing the winter fuel allowance, TV licence fees for the over 75s and the pensions triple lock will not reduce inter-generational unfairness - not when there are 1.6 million pensioners still living in poverty and a further 1.2 million with incomes just above the poverty line.

So we would argue that it is precisely our determination to preserve the benefits we have secured which will ensure a better deal for today’s younger generation when they come to retire. Our fight is their fight.

Across the generations, there is a crisis in health care funding; in the lack of affordable housing and as we age, in the provision of social care for those needing help just to live.

So come and have your say - the answer to the ageing crisis is in your hands.