When the first strategy for older people was launched by the Welsh Government in 2003, Denbighshire established the Ageing Well in Denbighshire’ (AWiD) group to represent the older population of Denbighshire in promoting and facilitating age friendly practices and supporting the aims and objectives of the strategy as well as the work of the Older Peoples Commissioner for Wales (from 2008).

The AWiD group was developed and enhanced in 2017 in response to the introduction of the second 10 year strategy for older people in Wales (2013-2023), which aspired amongst other priorities to support the creation of an Age Friendly Wales. AWiD has been promoting and supporting age friendly practices over its lifetime informed through engagement with its older residents. The development of our action plan in preparation for joining the global network of age friendly cities and communities however inspired the hosting of additional engagement events during 2024 to supplement the communications conducted routinely through the AWiD network and regular older people’s fora meetings. This has allowed our understanding of the interests and priorities of older people in Denbighshire to be refreshed and is reflected in the actions now identified in our action plan.

The Denbighshire action plan therefore has been generated by AWiD members, inspired through the involvement of a cross section of our older population, and is supported by Denbighshire Council, with the objective to allow Denbighshire to become increasingly age friendly.

Our action plan is framed by the eight domains for age friendly action as identified by WHO in their Global Age Friendly Cities Guide, which provided a helpful mechanism to categorise the age related challenges and priorities of Denbighshire’s older people identified throughout the lifetime of AWiD and more recently to focus on different subjects of interest and concern amongst attendees of our engagement events. The members of ageing well in Denbighshire accept the challenge of becoming increasing age friendly using the action plan as the agenda for improvement over the coming years. We have also taken the following steps to develop and embed age-friendly principals in Denbighshire:

• Build upon and enhance existing mechanisms to involve older people in all stages of the age-friendly process, such as with our older people’s fora and coordinated networks.
• Collaborate with partners to create opportunities for person centred, individualised support so that people can meet their potential irrespective of age or ability

• Use the learning, insights and data developed within our Public Service Boards and our Regional Partnerships Boards to identify indicators that reflect progress against the action plan.

• Implement and embed a culture of continual improvement within all those developing and delivering our age-friendly plan, capturing examples of good practice for sharing with the wider network.

We in Denbighshire want to encourage our older population to live full and healthy lives and be able to participate and contribute to their communities. We believe that Age-Friendly communities create the conditions within which people can age well, adding life to years – not just years to life.