The mental health of older people has too often been ignored due to systemic ageism, a report says.
Ignoring the needs of older people is discriminatory and has consequences for older people, their families, their communities and public services, the Center for Mental Health said.
Their report, commissioned by Age UK, concluded that there is a “pervasive sense of pessimism and inevitability that normalizes poor mental health” among older people.
The charity also argued that there was a “pressing need to address age-related assumptions and expectations about mental health in later life”.
The report, published on Tuesday, comes after a Resolution Foundation study published last week found that younger people with mental health problems may see their chances of receiving a good education diminish and end up out of work or accessing low paying jobs.
The authors of this latest report said similar attention needs to be paid to the mental health of older people.
A report commissioned by Age UK found there is a “pervasive sense of pessimism and inevitability that normalises poor mental health” among older people.
Andy Bell, chief executive of the Center for Mental Health, said: “Recent reports have highlighted a deeply worrying rise in poor mental health among young people.
“We want to see similar concern for older generations, so that their experiences of poor mental health are no longer dismissed as an inevitable part of ageing.”
The authors said they based their research on existing evidence, but that the findings “are limited by the paucity of research and policy development specific to our mental health in old age.”
They said there is no national strategy or plan to help public services prevent mental illness in old age, to intervene quickly to prevent problems from escalating or to meet the needs of people with mental health problems in old age “of effective and holistic way.
As the population is aging, the mental health of this population “will be increasingly important for health and care services to care for effectively,” they added.
The report states: ‘The invisibility of older people within mental health services and policy-making is a major concern.
“Older people are very easy to overlook, from designing prevalence surveys to commissioning mental health support.”
Bell said age discrimination is “deeply rooted and systemic, and is causing people to miss out on mentally healthier later lives.”
He added: ‘The absence of old age in successive national mental health plans means there has been little investment in supporting the mental health of older people. This is a form of discrimination that leaves older people without effective help.
‘Our briefing paper sets out some immediate changes that could make a difference. Future mental health strategies must treat older people equitably.’
The charity’s report, commissioned by Age UK, concluded that there is a “pervasive sense of pessimism and inevitability normalizing poor mental health” among older people.
Paul Farmer, chief executive of Age UK, said: “There is a paradox at the heart of supporting older people’s mental health: on the one hand, it is not sufficiently recognised, and on the other, low mood and depression They are treated as ‘just your age’.
“In either case, the result is the same: many of us lack the care we need to maintain good mental well-being as we age.”
The report called on research funders to prioritize projects looking at mental health in older age, urged integrated care boards (ICBs) to review their provision of mental health support to older adults and said they should make efforts in staff training to address ageist attitudes.
He said the plan must “challenge deep-rooted and entrenched age discrimination across all health and care services, creating a new narrative that values mental health in older age”.
NHS England has been contacted for comment.
