Kingston upon Thames

making later life a greater life...

Impact Report 2009

Our theme for 2009 is:

making la

The objective of this report is to demonstrate our achievements over the last year, reflecting on our aims of 2008, and to set out our operational objectives for the next 12 months. This year, 2009, we celebrate ten years since the foundation of the new Age Concern Kingston upon Thames. We have marked this by incorporating into this report a poster which shows the breadth and diversity of the ways in which we help and support older people. Over the last year the economic downturn has worsened and the consequences of the recession are very likely to affect older people for many years to come particularly those on low incomes. Mounting government debt will mean increased pressure on local authorities to reduce spending which, in turn, will no doubt have an impact on the services that growing numbers of older people need and rely on.

ater life a greater life...

Age Concern Kingston upon Thames has fared well over the last year. As this report shows, we have achieved much of what we set out to do a year ago, but the overall economic climate means the future may be very different. The challenge for us is twofold: on the one hand, maintaining existing sources of revenue, while on the other dealing with an increasing demand for our services and seeking new sustainable funding sources. It was against this backdrop that we invited our partners in health services and the local authority to a planning session in April. The broad objectives we identified then are outlined in this report. Most importantly, we ended the session on a positive note. We will continue to develop new initiatives, to explore with others how best we can move forward, listening to the needs and wishes of older people and raising awareness of these issues, in order to provide quality services that help make later life a greater life.

What we did
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launched a new Stay Well service in partnership with GPs to help people remain safe and well in their own homes launched a new Home Response service in partnership with NHS Kingston to provide practical help and support to older people during an illness helped 1,731 people through our Advice, Advocacy and Information service responded to an average of 145 referrals per month to our First Contact telephone help line achieved our healthy ageing target by recruiting 600 more people to our Active Living Passport Scheme to help people keep fit and healthy in later life increased the number of our volunteers by over 20% to 146 won Approved Provider Status for our intergenerational work from the Centre of Intergenerational Practice increased the number of care homes participating in our Home Buddy scheme to 12, increased the number of volunteers to 28 and made over 170 visits continued to enhance the range of opportunities provided at our Bradbury Active Age Centre made changes to the provision of meals and transport at our Raleigh Day Centre to make it more economically viable piloted a method of measuring outcomes for service users as part of our Stay Well service began preparations for the Investors in People award and ensuring the organisation is equipped for future opportunities to tender for work

Next year we will

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inspire our people staff and volunteers to make a difference in everything they do to make later life a greater life seek funding to develop new well-being and preventative services which support people to remain safe and independent in their own homes through partnerships with health services, the local authority and the local third sector meet the key objectives of all our projects: Active Living, Home Response, Intergenerational, Lunch Clubs, Safeguarding, Stay Well launch a Handyperson service to provide low-cost help to older and disabled people improve access to effective, timely, advice and information demonstrating and promoting its importance for older people raise the quality of all aspects of our day service, increasing access and ensuring its continuing relevance and effectiveness ensure that all our activities contribute to improved outcomes for older peoples well-being and develop ways of demonstrating this focus on quality and maintaining our ISO 9001, Community Legal Service and Age Concern Quality Counts awards, and re-attaining Investors in People engage more people with our work through raising our profile in the community continue to provide value for money in all our activities develop more opportunities for volunteers, supporting and listening to them

Last year we said we would

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maintain our commitment to providing quality services that add life to years work closely with our partners in health services to develop new models of service provision in partnership, play a leading role in developing the local targets for active ageing enhance the work of our Advice, Advocacy and Information service by developing partnership initiatives to support the empowerment of older people through timely, accurate and independent advice and information continue to invest in and develop our Bradbury Active Age Centre seek to place existing day services on a sustainable financial footing develop outcome targets for our operations re-attain the Investors in People quality mark take advantage of new opportunities to expand our service portfolio through tendering for work maintain the high profile of our intergenerational and project work

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It is impossible to quantify the difference that your intervention has made thank you so much for your quietly persistent professionalism.