London Borough of Southwark joined the WHO Global Network in 2015 as part of our council’s Fairer Future promise to become an age-friendly borough. We want everyone to get the best out of Southwark, whatever their age. Over summer 2015 we will be holding a ‘community conversation’ with residents and partners about how we make our borough a place where ageing is positively celebrated and embraced. This will be led by our community engagement team, and will help to inform our assessment and age-friendly action plans for working with residents to help them to age well.

This work builds on the partnership work already embarked on by the council, the Consortium of Older People’s Organisations in Southwark (COPSINS), Southwark Pensioners’ Forum, Southwark Older People’s Forum, and Healthwatch.

We provide a range of age-friendly services, are a member of our local dementia action alliance and are working towards dementia-friendly accreditation. However we are motivated by more than a vision for change. We want to deliver a fairer future for all older residents and so by talking to people now – including those who do not consider themselves old, the next generation – we can get an insight to what Southwark should be doing now to make life better for our future older people. With this insight we can play an active part in the Global Network of cities.