Stephen Johnston's blog
Summary: A principles-based national framework for social care The recent £20bn birthday present to the NHS was welcome, if underwhelming, but the more pressing question facing the UK is how to fix social care. The two are connected of course, ‘bed blocking’ costs up to 8,000 lives a year. In today’s ageing society there is […]
Last Saturday morning I was on the top deck of a bus meandering through Westbourne Grove – an upscale part of west London – enjoying the pleasant scenery of white stucco houses and hipster coffee shops, when the bus stopped suddenly and the driver turned off the engine. Eventually people started getting off the bus. […]
I gave a presentation to the Care Quality Commission on Monday about some ‘disruptive’ ideas on the future of ageing. Obviously lots going on, so the hard thing is to come up with 3 topics rather than 33. Anyway, in the end I outlined three big shifts relating to individuals (becoming active stakeholders), technology (emerging […]
Cambridgeshire is in many ways a natural hub for innovation in ageing – it’s got a diverse population with a significant number of older inhabitants in rural areas, strong startup talent and biotech expertise centered around the University, sizable corporate interests, a healthy new town and some pretty unhealthy healthcare economics of its own, that are probably […]
One of the more noteworthy government appointments in recent weeks was that of 42-year old MP Tracey Crouch to be the new UK ‘Minister of Loneliness’. Although it initially sounds a bit like part of a Monty Python sketch, this is no joking matter. One might assume this role would be unique to the land […]
Yesterday’s Senate hearing with Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg was at times good theatre, tedious and excruciating. Some of the Senators in the room (average age 62) clearly didn’t understand Facebook, but then who can blame them? If people really understood it, we wouldn’t be here. That being said, there were a surprising number of odd and […]
While nobody doubts the need for doing things differently in preparing for our ageing societies, there’s less agreement on what needs to be done and how to do it. That daunting challenge is the one taken on by the new UK’s £98m Healthy Ageing Grand Challenge and the coming months will be the opportunity to show […]
As expected, last week’s Aging2.0 London event saw a full house, bold ideas and gastronomic marvels (ok, two out of three, but the crisps were tasty). What was on the menu however, was what I am calling “embedded innovation”. This is innovation with less roadbumps and took three forms: an integration with existing devices and form […]
I’ve just moved back to London after ten years in the US so this is perhaps a rather self-serving post (and one that also marks a shift to UK vs US spelling). I am excited to be back, not just for the obvious reasons (freezing sleet, warm beer, and erratic plumbing (obviously you should have separate hot […]
Summary: Keeping people independent will need a systemic approach One of the reasons why we’ve not mastered the ‘problem’ of ageing in place – or keeping people in their homes for as long as possible, is that nobody is in charge and financially incentivized to do this. Delivering on this goal, one of the key […]