ABSTRACT
Nationally, public officials’ interest here has been heightened on the assumption that receptivity to, and encouragement for, advocacy flows from the ‘joined-up government’ and ‘democratic renewal’ agendas noted under ‘community-building’. Yet while voluntary sector advocacy for and by older people in the UK has grown in recent years – and has most visibly been manifested by the creation of community care fora and networks in the 1990s – it still seems relatively limited in scope and scale compared to other client groups in Britain, and to older people’s advocacy in the US and continental Europe (Ginn, 1996; Walker and Naegele, 1999; Ginn and Arber, 1999; Twigg, 2000). Certainly at the local level, a picture of uneven and haphazard activity emerges from official reports on ‘consultation’ (Social Services Inspectorate, 2000a, b; Social Services Inspectorate and Audit Commission, 2000). The interviewees confirmed that this was the case, and indicated that those consultation exercises which had taken place,
The PSSRU SCOOP study found that a representative sample of 356 older people on average ranked social participation second in importance only to personal care, and ahead of food and nutrition, safety and control over daily life. For older people below 75 years of age and people living with others, social participation was given particular weight, and even ranked above personal care in the case of people living with others. The SCOOP research team concentrate on a medical explanation, suggesting this may be because of the protection from risk such participation offers: it could flow from a health-oriented desire to avoid social isolation because ‘the latter is associated with higher levels of morbidity and mortality’ (Netten et al., 1999: ii and 50, who refer to a variety of literature to substantiate this link). However, this high ranking could also reflect the importance attached by respondents to needs other than those relating narrowly to physical health – particularly protection from the risk of deterioration of emotional and mental health (see Glass et al., 1999). Indeed, following our earlier discussion, one could go further to suggest that older people may attach particular weight to social participation because of the recognition of self and friendship that it brings, over and above any relevance this has for their medically diagnosed health state.
