Vision: The North East will be the safest, healthiest and happiest place to grow old.

• Together with voluntary and community sector organisations, service commissioners and providers for older people, we will establish a Regional Advisory Group for Later Life.
• We will work to further develop the growing regional academic base for tackling the problems of ageing, with the intention of consolidating the North East as a world leader in this field.
• We will develop an interagency annual Winter Health Protection plan. This will address personal protection against cold; campaigns to be conducted; actions to alert behaviour change in cold snaps; support further action on insulation and housing design and further promote access to relevant benefits.
• We will achieve maximum appropriate immunisation uptake among older people.
• We will explore the possibility of social marketing to alter perceptions of old age within the region.
• We will establish regional targets for uptake of Warm Front Grants and for winter health protection.
• We will measure and report upon local progress towards the abolition of excess winter deaths.

Potential areas of action for RAG consideration: Measures to increase independence, choice and control – Grandparenting – Increasing the civic role of older people