Newcastle Charter for Changing Age

The number of older people in our population has increased dramatically. This trend will continue for the foreseeable future. A radical reassessment of the place of older people in society is long overdue. This must be accompanied by a profound change in attitudes to ageing, informed by facts and not by outdated misconceptions.

Too often, political debate has focused on population ageing as a negative issue, a burden to be managed. This negativity pervades attitudes commonly seen in the media, business, employment, education and even in health and social care. Political leadership is needed to promote change across society.

  • Increased life spans represent one of humanity’s greatest achievements
    For the great majority of the population, health and wellbeing have improved. Illness and death have been postponed through centuries of scientific research, ingenuity and perseverance.

  • Increasing life expectancy is an economic good
    Longevity has made, and continues to make, an enormously positive contribution to our economy. Older people are contributors and consumers of products and services, adding substantially to economic growth.

  • Ageing concerns us all
    Those who are young today will in time be old. Those who are old were once young.

  • Each individual has an equal place in our society regardless of age
    The blind eye that is so often turned to the scourge of ageism, in its widespread and corrosive forms, can no longer be accepted. Ageism should be outlawed to the same extent as racism, sexism and religious discrimination.

  • Much better information about older people is needed
    We need to know about the contributions, capabilities, needs and aspirations of older people in their enormous diversity. Older people should neither be marginalised nor treated as a separate category (the elderly) within society.

  • Older people are an under-acknowledged asset
    The mental capital and skills of older people should no longer go to waste. Arbitrary ages of compulsory retirement or of exclusion from full participation in any social activity, including education, should in future be abolished.

  • We need to use and expand our scientific knowledge about ageing
    Transformational reorganisation and reprioritisation of health research and service provision is needed to take account of new advances in understanding the connections between ageing and health.

  • We need urgently to adapt infrastructure for an ageing population
    Commitments are needed to begin as soon as possible to adapt national and local infrastructure for transport, housing, and communications to accommodate the changing age structure of our population. This will create major opportunities for industrial growth.