The population of Fujisawa City as of January 1 in 2017 is 427,199, and the proportion of population aged 65 and over is 23.9%. The population in 2025 is expected to be 429,714 and the proportion of population aged 65 and over is expected to be 25.2%. As this ageing trend continues, needs of services for the elderly will continue to increase.
From this perspective, Fujisawa City is implementing policies for the elderly toward the achievement of the goal “Creation of a society where people and city administration collaborate and support each other,” “Respect for individual’s dignity and identity,” and “People can keep living independently in their familiar communities,” based on the basic principle of “Creation of a city where people support each other, being healthy in mind and body.”
We emphasis on enhancing consultation and support system, advancing health promotion and nursing-care prevention, promoting dementia strategies, encouraging social participation and improving living environment. More specifically, as older people play a key role in their communities, so we promote volunteer activities by older people, support community groups, build a regional watching system for the elderly, develop communities where older people support the community they belong to, and so on.
In addition, for the elderly to live in their familiar community, it is important to provide medical, nursing care and welfare services in a cross sectional way, so we are also building a framework for this.
In order to make Fujisawa City more age-friendly, we collaborate with Kanagawa Prefectural Government which has been promoting “improvement of ME-BYO” and neighboring municipalities, aiming to be the city with the longest healthy life expectancy in Japan. Also, we will listen to the needs of the elderly, the opinions of citizens and experts, and reflect these factors on policies. And by linking with the comprehensive plan of Fujisawa City’s policy administration, we will implement age-friendly projects in various fields.
(ME-BYO: Rather than regarding health and illness as being mutually exclusive, the concept of ME-BYO views a person’s mental and physical condition as continuously changing along a spectrum between health and illness).