Live Longer Better

Earlier this month the Active Partnerships National Organisation (APNO) hosted an event for key national and local partners to celebrate the success of and to continue to activate the Live Longer Better movement. The event brought together delegates and speakers from across the physical activity and healthcare sectors, and it highlighted the impressive collaboration that has been happening in this area of work.

Annie Holden, Strategic Lead for Health for APNO and the Live Longer Better Project Manager, explains why the movement is so important, provides details about the conference, and looks ahead to what the future might hold for the movement.

“Back in 2020, inspired by the evidence and ideas shared by Sir Muir Gray, we wanted to create a movement to develop a new culture of enablement, using activity as a way of increasing healthspan for older adults. Live, Longer Better was therefore established and it’s so rewarding to see just how far we have come, how it has been embraced across the country, and to continue hearing the wonderful stories about all of the people who became active as a direct result of this movement.

On 20 March we brought together key figures and national and local partners at a conference in London to celebrate the movement’s success so far. It was also an opportunity for some of our speakers to clearly outline and remind delegates of the benefits of beingactive in older age – the benefits to the individual of course, when it comes to both physical and mental health, but also the wider benefits to society, the environment and the economy.

The event provided a platform to inform and connect passionate people, share innovative initiatives and we also celebrated the local partnerships that have been helping communities to improve their quality of life.

It was an opportunity to look back at what we have achieved so far and to showcase some of the tremendous projects supporting improved older adults’ health through activity.

The well received, passionate speeches underlined exactly why this work is so important, with the speakers providing compelling and undeniable evidence as to why physical activity is crucial to the health of the population, as well as its importance to a successful NHS and social care system in England.  The speakers also helped to reinforce our collective ambitions and there was a clear recurring theme about the importance of cross sector working and the need for consistent messaging to be shared with a variety of relevant sectors and government departments.

A special mention must also be made of the 30 Active Partnerships and their respective partners that have engaged with the movement and who supported the conference. In fact several of those Active Partnerships joined us on stage and presented at the conference alongside their local partners. Not only did they highlight the innovative ways that they have been delivering the movement together at a local level, but their community case studies underlined the fantastic impact that has been achieved so far.

Feedback has shown that conference delegates really valued learning about the local picture and appreciated the insight that was provided into the lived experience of those partners delivering Live Longer Better at a community level.

Partnership has been a crucial theme since the movement began and a few years on it’s great to see that more than 4,500 partnershave worked with the Active Partnerships network and have demonstrated the incredible power of collaboration. National partners, including funders Sport England, the NHS, and Age UK have also made really crucial contributions.

At the conference it was great to have a room full of experts all focused on the challenges and the possible solutions and I would like to express my thanks to everyone for their involvement, both at the conference and throughout the last few years with the introduction of and delivery of the Live Longer Better movement so far.

The impact of Live Longer Better has so far been fantastic.  But this month’s conference was just the latest example of how we have continually brought together everyone that’s part of this movement. In recent years 75 workshops and events have taken place nationally with 351 internal and external speakers presenting to an audience of nearly 3,700 people.

So far more than 20,000 individuals have engaged in active aging activities thanks to this movement. This success is hard to ignore and it has even led to Live Longer Better being highlighted by the Chief Medical Officer, Sir Chris Whitty, in his 2023 annual report, as a great example of collaborative working and a great model for utilising physical activity to enhance the healthspan of older adults.

So, what happens next?  Well as successful as the movement has been, there so much more we can still achieve, if we continue to work together.

We need to look at how we can continue to bang the physical activity drum and encourage even more people to be active later in life and we need to look at how we can continue to influence health and care colleagues, ensuring physical activity is prioritised at the highest level.

I believe that the speeches and presentations at last week’s conference demonstrated that we have momentum, we have the data to prove that this approach works and there’s clearly a collective appetite in this sector to continue highlighting how important physical activity and movement are to living longer and having a better quality of life.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing the themes and thoughts that have emerged from the conference, to keep the conversation flowing and to help guide us as the Live Longer Better movement transitions into its next phase.”