About Help the Aged

Help the Aged is an international charity fighting to free disadvantaged older people from poverty, isolation and neglect.

Help the Aged has national offices in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland whose role is to manage our campaigns and services within the context of their own national or regional environment.

The charity is organised into seven divisions: Policy and External Relations, Research and International, Community Services, Fundraising and Marketing, Retail, Finance and Human Resources.

Research is part of our fundamental remit. Our social research allows us to understand the needs of older people for lobbying, campaigns and services, while our biomedical research lets us understand and contribute to the prevention of the diseases of ageing.

We lobby effectively in Westminster, the Welsh Assembly, the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Scottish Executive to bring about changes to the policy and practice affecting the lives of older people.

We campaign through the media and across the UK with over 400 independent forums of older people as well as through alliances with like-minded organisations.

We provide a range of services for disadvantaged older people around the UK, where our aim is to enable them to live independently in their own homes for as long as they wish.

We are funded completely independently and raise all our own income through a network of 370 shops and from individuals, legacies, major individual donors, companies, trusts and by selling commercial services.

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Our vision

Our vision is of a future where older people are free from the disadvantages of poverty, isolation and neglect, so they can live with dignity as valued, respected and involved members of society.

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Our mission

Our mission is to secure and uphold the rights of disadvantaged older people in the UK and around the world. Working with them, we will research their needs, campaign for changes in policy, and provide services to alleviate hardship today and prevent deprivation tomorrow.

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Our objectives

WE WILL:

• combat poverty to achieve significant reductions in financial hardship and social exclusion, and mitigate their worst effects.
  We want a state pension that meets the needs of the poorest, a dramatic reduction in avoidable winter deaths, vast improvement in the take-up of the benefits to which older people are entitled, and improved livelihoods for deprived older people in developing countries.
• reduce isolation to decrease the number of older people experiencing loneliness and isolation.
  We want fewer older people feeling cut-off from society, protection from the harsh costs of basic services, reduced fear of crime and free bus travel across the UK.
• challenge neglect to secure the delivery of consistently accessible, good-quality care, addressing the biggest threats to health and well-being.
  We want social care services to meet demand, older people to benefit from biomedical advances and social policy developments, a lower incidence of falls, stroke and dementia, joined-up health and care services, and stronger protection against elder abuse.
• defeat ageism to win equality and human rights for disadvantaged older people, enabling them to escape from deprivation.
  We want age discrimination outlawed in employment, goods and services, older people to have equal rights in health and social care, and greater involvement of older people in shaping the policies and services that affect their lives.
• prevent future deprivation to reduce those at greatest risk in the future by stimulating prevention as well as cure, through research and other means.
  We want greater availability and better access to low-level social services support, better circulation of information on health, wealth and well-being so that people can change their lifestyles for the better, increased healthy life expectancy, and higher rates of employment, learning and physical activity.