Health Education England elearning for healthcare (HEE elfh) has worked with the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) to develop a new elearning session for the All Our Health programme.

Healthy Ageing is aimed at frontline health and care professionals to help them use their trusted relationships with patients, families and communities to promote the benefits of healthy ageing.

This session has been developed in response to the UK’s steadily ageing population.  People are living longer but they are not always living in good health. The average healthy life expectancy differs considerably from region to region with too many people, particularly in the most deprived areas of England, spending a large proportion of their later life in poor health or managing multiple long-term conditions which could be prevented, or the impact lessened, through action on behavioural risk factors, community interventions, such as building social connections, and wider determinants including employment, housing and transport.

To help address this widening gap in life expectancy, the Healthy Ageing session provides advice and information to help all health and care professionals:

• understand specific activities and interventions that can support healthy ageing and provide holistic care
• think about the resources and services available in your area that can help people to be happy, healthy and active into later life

The session also signposts learners to other sources of useful information within the NHS, the Royal College of Psychiatrists and The British Geriatrics Society. It complements the 26 existing sessions within the All Our Health programme which covers a range of public health topics including dementia, falls and fractures and physical activity. All Our Health also features 5 interactive townscape sessions where learners can click on various buildings, such as the GP surgery and school, to access support on topics such as breastfeeding and childhood obesity.

For more information and to access the Healthy Ageing session, please visit the All Our Health programme page.