Drink Wise Age Well England Legacy Workshops

Drink Wise Age Well England Legacy Workshops

1 in 3 adults aged 50 to 70 increased their alcohol use during the COVID-19 lockdown. Even before the pandemic, alcohol consumption had been increasing in the over 50s population, while it decreased in other age groups. Addressing problem drinking in the over 50s has therefore never been more crucial.

Earlier this year, ILC and Drink Wise, Age Well held a series of online workshops to explore how organisations can work together to help reduce alcohol harm in the over 50s. Using insights and learning from the Drink Wise, Age Well programme, we convened a selection of stakeholders to catalyse action and seed future commitment to addressing the needs of our older population.

This summary report from NPC outlines some of the key themes that emerged from the workshops, including:

  • A need for collaboration/cross-system working across organisations to reduce alcohol harm in the over 50s.
  • Lived experience voices must be central to any service planning and delivery.
  • Using learning from the pandemic to look at a blended approach to service delivery including digital offers.

More about Drink Wise, Age Well

Funded by the National Lottery Community Fund, Drink Wise, Age Well is a UK programme led by We Are With You in partnership with Royal Voluntary Service, Developing a Caring Wales, Inspire NI and the Substance Misuse and Ageing Research Team (SMART) from the University of Bedfordshire. ILC-UK has provided policy expertise and guidance to the partnership throughout the programme life. The programme was based in five regions across the UK from 2015 to 2020 and was designed to change attitudes, combat stigma and reduce alcohol harm in the over 50s, so that they may live longer, healthier lives.