Be proactive: delivering proactive care for older people with frailty

Proactive care plays a vital role in delaying the onset of frailty, maintaining older people’s independence, and reducing avoidable periods of ill health. Last year, the BGS highlighted the importance of proactive care in Joining the Dots: A blueprint for preventing and managing frailty in older people by highlighting it as one of seven key touchpoints to support older people to age well.

We were pleased that the long-awaited NHS England Guidance on proactive care was published last year. Previously known as anticipatory care, proactive care is one of the three original streams of the Ageing Well programme, as detailed in the NHS Long Term Plan. While we remain disappointed that the initial promised funding for the programme was cut, the guidance provides a crucial framework.

In October 2024, the BGS published Be proactive: Evidence supporting proactive care for older people with frailty. This first publication provides evidence to help colleagues build business cases for proactive care in their locality. Our second publication, Be proactive: Delivering care for older people with frailty, acts as a roadmap to support the delivery of proactive care services for older people with moderate to severe frailty. With the NHS England guidance as an overarching framework, we propose colleagues use both BGS documents to deliver evidence-based proactive care.

To deliver proactive care, we recognise colleagues require both appropriate infrastructure and policy locally and nationally. As such, our second report provides eight recommendations requiring action from commissioners, policymakers, providers and healthcare professionals at local, regional and national levels. We urge anyone involved in commissioning proactive care services to seek the expertise and resources available from the BGS.

We know that the provision of proactive care services varies greatly across the UK, creating unequal health outcomes for older people. However, we also know there are many exemplary proactive care services across the four nations, and we believe the same principles apply to the organisation and delivery of proactive care across the UK. As with all our work at the BGS, we have been pleased to work with our multidisciplinary members who provided invaluable insights and content to inform the report. I would like to thank all those involved. Now, it is crucial that proactive care is prioritised and embedded across all primary and community settings to ensure older people live well and stay independent for longer.