Thank you Pew - thank you Aging in place technology watch

It is fitting that probably the best two US sources of information and comment about older people and how they use technology conclude 2010 with more insights into the way the factors of ageing and technology interrelate and how things might change in the future.

The Pew report contains some excellent ways of mapping the change in technology use and age and Laurie Orlov’s blog raises the interesting question of how younger boomers will cope in the future with ever more complicated ways of communicating and receiving information.

My assumption has always been that the tech savvy younger- old will have no problem in mastering new tech products but I now have my doubts.

Maybe the past few days that I have spent in migrating from using Windows to Apple have made me thing again. It is interesting how much effort it takes to ditch a comfortable world of technology and start again. Having said that it is great fun! Dick Stroud

Are you mobile digitally excluded?

This year has seen a lot of focus on the plight of the UK’s digitally excluded – most of whom are 60+.

Just as the media has got its head around this subject the game has moved on to the plight of the mobile digitally excluded.
As this article explains, the new game in town is all about using marketing to incentivise smartphone users. Where this leaves your aged aunt who has just about worked out how to turn on a mobile phone is anybody’s guess.

Well it is not really a guess, I think we know the answer. The world is moving to smartphones and that is where new consumer marketing campaigns will be pitched. Sure it is not going to change overnight but all of the arguments of why not having Internet access become even stronger when we introduce the mobility factor. Dick Stroud

The Joy of statistics

If you don’t watch this programme on BBC iPlayer by the 20th of December you will have missed one of the most amazing TV experiences of 2010. I am really sorry those of you outside the UK who will not be able to access iPlayer.

Just to give you a feel of the programme watch the above clip. Just look at the way the average age of people has increased and the reason why quoting the average is so misleading.

I just wish I had this guy’s talent (and technical resources) to make numbers come to life. A real gem of a programme. If you watch until the programme’s end there is some fascinating research about the happiness feelings of the old and young. I will post this video clip in the next few days. Dick Stroud

You know that no good will come of it

The shenanigans that are going on in Europe are something like a bush fire. Just when you think the flames are out it flares up somewhere else. You get sombre pronouncements from an EU bigwig assuring us the problems are sorted and within a week it is clear that they aren’t and that there is worse news to come.

The same pattern of things has been going on with the Southern Cross. For what seems forever, the care home company has been renegotiating its debt and coming to terms with the reality of life in the austere times of local government cutbacks.

Today’s FT concludes that: “Southern Cross’s future remains unclear following the release of its full-year results.” The FT is is on subscription.

The company confirmed that its lenders had agreed to change the terms of its banking covenants, which analysts had said Southern Cross could have breached in the near future and that it had entered talks with 10 of its largest landlords, seeking cuts in its rents and an end to agreements that link rent increases with inflation.

Latest losses have reached £47.4m although reassuringly the Finance Director said: “It’s in nobody’s interest to see our business become unstable.”

Lots of the company’s problems are of their own making but it does suffer the same constraints as the rest of the care business. These two sentences from the FT tell us a lot about what is going on in the industry.

To compensate for local council cuts, the group is looking to attract more self-funded payers, who last year paid on average more than £100 per week more for their care than local authority-funded patients. Some 20% of residents are self-funded.

Southern Cross is asking residents’ families for “top-up” payments to help to cover the full cost of care, Mr Buchan said. The fees are not means-tested and families can decline to pay, but the company can refuse to accept the patient. I think that is marketing speak for threat!

Where Southern Cross goes a lot more care companies a sure to follow. Dick Stroud

I wonder if we have got our 13 million Euros worth?

I have just discovered another EU funded venture aiming to help older people – this one is called Netcarity. Totally new to me although it appears to have been going for the past 3 years.

The cynic in me looks at this type of venture and thinks that it is a way of keeping a lot of academics gainfully employed but will deliver little, other than lots of conference speeches and journal papers. Perhaps somebody can put me straight and explain what products have/will result from all of this expenditure. Dick Stroud

New research from ILC-UK

I went to the launch of this research by David Sinclair of ILC-UK. It is a sound research project that gives an excellent view of the dynamics of the older market.

You can also download the stats that were used in the report.

Tony Watts, the editor of Mature Times and a guy who knows a lot about this subject says: “This is an exceptional report. It's the best thought through piece on this subject that I've seen and - if it gets in the right hands - it will move the debate forward significantly and do a lot of good.”

Well done ILC-UK. Dick Stroud

Head of Age UK becomes chairman of UK agency

In the great scheme of things the news that the head of Age UK becomes chairman of a consultancy that provides advice to companies, and organisations like Age UK, is not worth a second reading.

I guess it raises a few eyebrows about the way Age UK will dishes out its agency contracts but I cannot believe it would be so daft as to give the company involved, RHC-Advantage, any business. I am sure that must have been part of the deal for Mr Wright to become involved.

I am also sure that Mr Wright wouldn’t want to be seen as being recruited for his address book (i.e. as a source of business leads) or as a source of proprietary information.

As the article says, Age Concern has taken ages to extricate itself from the Heyday disaster and will want to maintain a whiter than white image, especially as it is trying to establish the Age UK brand.

It might be an idea if Mr Wright makes clear what being chairman of the company does and doesn’t involve. In particular what Age UK and RHC-Advantage get out of the relationship.

This news story got me thinking about who I would select as chairman of 20plus30 – not that there is a job vacancy. So far nobody comes to mind. Dick Stroud

The Twilight Generation

Five years ago I identified a cohort of older people I called the Charmed Generation. A combination of final salary personal pensions, house price inflation, lack of debt and inherited money from their parents has insulated these people from the financial trauma that has afflicted their children and grandchildren and many of their peers.

Over the past year the financial plight of a slightly younger group of older people has hit the headlines of the mass media.

We are going to hear a lot more about this group so let’s give them a name – the Twilight Generation.

Aged in their 50s they lack savings and pension assets. They probably are property owners but likely to still be paying mortgage. They face the end of their working life – or have already reached that position – totally unprepared for funding their lifestyle in the 60s, 70s and 80s. Fortunately, most of them do not realise just how bad things are and how little they can do to improve their situation.

You must always be suspicious of research from financial institutions since it invariably results in a slew of conclusions that just happen to require the products they sell.

Having said that the recent pronouncement of Aviva, LV and most importantly MetLife Europe are all saying the same sort of things:

• 4.5 million over-50s expect to work past retirement age
• One in five (4.3 million) over-50s had retired but have since gone back into work
• The average pension fund of working adults aged 50-plus is £51,200. The average man has £68,800 while the average woman has £34,500.

What is the relative size of the Charmed and Twilight Generation? To be honest, I don’t know. My first guess is that there are at least two Twilights for every Charmed. Over the coming months I will attempt to improve this quantification. Dick Stroud

We need a TripAdvisor for UK Care Homes

My first blog posting for ages and it is a personal gripe. Sorry.

Last week the BBC broadcast a radio programme (File on 4) about the chaotic mess that masquerades as the ‘official’ monitor of the standards in UK Care Homes. This podcast is only available if you are in the UK or if you know how to fool the system by using a proxy server.

I have always been suspicious of the public sector mentality that pervades much of the care home industry but even I was shocked as I heard the head of the Care Quality Commission attempt to explain its deficiencies.

I know that the BBC can create a one-sided portrayal of any situation, and often does, but I think this programme gets to the core of the problem. Just listen.

The only way we are going to sort this mess out is by the wholesale application of user generated content. We need a TripAdvisor for care homes where the people that really know and care about what is happening - those with parents and friends in these places – are given a voice to reveal the reality.

There is no way that a bunch of bureaucrats will deliver what is required. 95% of their time will be spent on form filling, meetings, coordinating, training, sick leave, work sharing, maternity leave, holidays and ‘processes’.

I am sure the social networking model would work for care homes. The next application would the quality of care on individual hospital wards.

There is an endemic and institutional failure of the public sector to monitor and correct its own failings. Bring on customer power. Dick Stroud