I well remember how much effort was put into the planning of the birth of a new child and its arrival into the world. So many hours making sure the right clothes were bought, the cot was built properly, care seats fitted and tried, the pram was ready and so on. And then the actual birth – the planning process around birth is unrecognisable today compared to the experience any woman might have had in the 1960s or 70s.

Childbirth and early years must equate to one of the most planned and prepared for moments of our lives. That sense of planning continues to a lesser degree as we go through life and grow up. Whether it is our education and career choices, our university or college, our vocation or job, then through the various stages of relationships and partnerships, our first flat or home, a marriage or engagement – there seems to be no limit to the times to plan, schedule and prepare. Then we get older, and we age. And the planning seems to diminish if not entirely disappear.

Perhaps it is the demise of the life-long career or the ending of the statutory retirement age or the unpredictability of modern pensions, but it strikes me despite all the pressure and focus, the encouragement and emphasis, that fewer and fewer people prepare for post work life or for older age in general.

The positivity of human demography in Scotland is that most of us will live longer than our forebears and our children and grandchildren will live even longer. The challenge is few of us do so with an abundance of good health.

We are now into the second year of the United Nations Decade of Healthy Ageing and I am increasingly of the view that the way we today view ageing is anything but positive and healthy. In fact to some degree, I think the pandemic and our response to it internationally as well as in the UK has put us back years in terms of challenging age discrimination and the valuing of older age in particular.

The Decade (2021-2030) aims to be:

‘a global collaboration, aligned with the last ten years of the Sustainable Development Goals, that brings together governments, civil society, international agencies, professionals, academia, the media, and the private sector to improve the lives of older people, their families, and the communities in which they live.

Populations around the world are ageing at a faster pace than in the past and this demographic transition will have an impact on almost all aspects of society. Already, there are more than 1 billion people aged 60 years or older, with most living in low- and middle-income countries. Many do not have access to even the basic resources necessary for a life of meaning and of dignity. Many others confront multiple barriers that prevent their full participation in society.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the seriousness of existing gaps in policies, systems and services. A decade of concerted global action on healthy ageing is urgently needed to ensure that older people can fulfil their potential in dignity and equality and in a healthy environment.’

The Decade has four focus or priority areas for action, namely age friendly environments; combatting ageism; integrated care and long-term care.

I was reflecting recently on the relative lack of progress in terms of the Decade with some colleagues and on the growth of what I consider to be even more ageist attitudes in the last few years as we responded to a recent consultation on healthcare and older people. In particular the consultation asked for perspectives on the role and value of what is called ‘Anticipatory Care Planning.’ These are plans often prepared with an older person post diagnosis of a serious illness like dementia and cancer. They come in various formats but consist of a description of choices and desires around deteriorating health and potential loss of capacity and personal control.

I think there are emerging views that the negative experience of some people with DNACPRs during the pandemic has made the work of developing ACPs harder. But apart from the unhelpful association with negative pandemic practice I think one of the basic needs is that we as a whole society need to re conceptualise our planning into and for later life, for ageing in general and to develop and nurture much more positivity than we currently possess for older age.

Work needs to be undertaken to ensure that planning is part and parcel of later life and ageing and that maybe even the term anticipatory care plan is one that we need to ditch. Planning for later life does not need to be about planning for decline and deterioration or for the inevitability of care and support. Why instead should we not broaden out planning for later life away from the narrow confines of health and social care? Why should we all rather not be encouraged and resourced to create a Later Life Plan, or an Ageing Plan?

Now I immediately recognise that for so many of my fellow citizens this seems illusory or even a waste. There are, I fully acknowledge countless thousands who simply do not have the capacity or resource to ‘plan’ for their future, so busy are they with simply continuing to exist and meet the basic human needs. Such poverty in older age should shame us but should equally be an incentive to ensure that whole life planning becomes fully inclusive of older age.

I think as part of this we urgently need to reform the way in which pensions and support in later life is offered, including the inequities of funding for some parts of social care and health and not others. We cannot achieve the laudable aims of the Decade of Healthy Ageing without seriously addressing the structural and systemic issues which fail to prevent ill health, mitigate against measures to protect, and which disable our ability to address the diseases of older age, not least mental health, and wellbeing. We need, I would suggest, a radical non-partisan and politically independent commission on older age across our society to meet the Decade’s aims and aspirations. Instead, we have piece meal strategies which regurgitate promises and past policy without venturing into new ground and possibility.

We need to both individually and collectively plan for the future of ageing as a positive prospect and possibility rather than to react to ageing as something accidental or by  happenstance. Only when we individually and societally start to plan and resource positive ageing will we achieve both healthy and holistic older age. Let us put as much focus in later age as we do in preparing for birth and new beginnings.

Donald Macaskill