Homes for Healthy Ageing: New Location Partners Announced

Our location partners

• Leeds City Council: Improving health and wellbeing through social connectedness
• University of Brighton and Brighton & Hove City Council: Helping unpaid carers
• Essex County Council: Improving efficiencies and communication in care provision

u0026quot;We are very excited that our collaboration with Brighton and Hove City Council has been chosen as one of the new location partners for the Homes for Healthy Ageing programme. The University will contribute its expertise in living labs innovation and Digital Health to the new project, alongside the City Council’s expertise in delivering and innovating in the field of Health and Social Care with city partners, developing insights gained from our previous collaboration in setting up a ‘Living Lab’ at Leach Court sheltered housing facility. u0026quot;Feeding our expertise and strong local business contacts into the Homes for Healthy Ageing Programme will support the ambition for everyone in Brighton u0026amp; Hove to be able to age well and be helped to live independently in the community thanks to services and knowledge that connect them with their communities.u0026quot;

Dr Theo Fotis, University of Brighton, Academic Lead Brighton and Hove Living Lab

By 2050, 1 in 4 people will be over 65. This will bring new opportunities and challenges for our homes and neighbourhoods to better serve the UK’s ageing population. Through our Homes for Healthy Ageing programme, Connected Places Catapult is working with partners across the UK to trial and demonstrate innovative solutions to some of the country’s healthy ageing challenges, gathering insights on common age-related challenges and showcasing the most innovative technologies to inform a new ‘homes for healthy ageing’ market.

In August 2021, we announced our first two location partners: Sunderland City Council and a Northern Ireland consortium made up of Ulster University, Age NI, Belfast City Council, Connected Health Innovation Centre, Markets Development Association, Public Health Agency NI, Queen’s University Belfast, and Health Innovation Research Alliance. Since then, our Sunderland and Northern Ireland partners have been trialling solutions to overcome Cold and Damp Homes and Social Isolation and Loneliness, respectively, within their local testbeds.

Next steps

Over the coming weeks, we will work with our partners to better understand key challenges to healthy ageing and how innovation and technology can play a role in supporting people be independent in their own homes for longer. conduct local challenge research to better frame the challenges they will seek to find solutions to, and define the format the testbeds will take, before launching an Open Call to select the SMEs that will take part in each local testbed. We look forward to working closely with our future testbeds to continue championing the needs of older adults in the UK.

What is a testbed?

A testbed is an approach for trialing innovative and ambitious ideas in real-life settings. A testbed approach enables us to quickly learn what does and doesn’t work in a safe environment before iterating and scaling up. Testbeds give innovators access to user groups and local environments so they can develop, test and showcase new or existing products and services without the usual risks.