Healthy ageing by design
Design thinking is critical to developing innovative and desirable healthy ageing products and services.
Julian Grice and John Mathers have been working with the Healthy Ageing Challenge to develop ways in which design thinking can be embedded into Trailblazer bids to increase impact and de-risk projects. Having described the impact of design at the Trailblazer launch, they explain how design thinking is key to the development of innovative and desirable solutions that help everyone age healthily.
In this, the first of three blogs, we discuss the first key question Trailblazers need to consider: What is the Healthy Ageing market opportunity? and What is the Healthy Ageing Vision?
What is the Healthy Ageing Challenge vision?
To set the scene it’s helpful to understand the market that the Challenge is responding to.
While the UK’s population is growing, improvements in healthcare and lifestyles means it is also getting older — in 50 years’ time there will be an additional 8.6 million people aged 65 and over — a population roughly the size of London.
One in three girls born today will live to be 100. This alone illustrates that as we live longer and need to age well, the market opportunity for UK firms to develop products and services is immense.
People will have a radically different view to their life-stages changing from a 3-stage life today to a multi-stage life that will generate many new needs. As a result the philosophy “as we age” is central to the challenge design ethos.
Our principal focus is on people before they become dependent on statutory services, particularly the populations that would otherwise be reaching that stage in 15 years’ time. This is an opportunity to focus on prevention and intervene earlier in the ageing journey. Healthy Ageing opens up vast new opportunities for people and providers.
Our vision is to enable businesses, including social enterprises, to develop and deliver products, services and business models that will be adopted at scale, which support people as they age. This will allow people to remain active, productive, independent and socially connected across generations for as long as possible.
For more on the vision have a look here: https://innovateuk.blog.gov.uk/2019/10/03/healthy-ageing-trailblazers/
“User involvement across the spectrum is a real issue … it simply doesn’t happen” - Lynne Corner, Director, Voice — National Innovation Centre for Ageing
What’s the Healthy Ageing market opportunity?
Anyone looking at the ageing market who thinks this is a niche, marginal low-growth market should think again. The data tells a different story. It’s a fast emerging story of mainstream, inclusive and multi-user solutions.
The silver economy is a massive growing market. In the UK over 50’s hold 68% of all UK household wealth ($10.7 trillion and in 2015 sustained over €4.2 trillion in GDP and over 78 million jobs across the EU.)
Older people are becoming wealthier and have greater resources than younger generations. In 2015 the over 50’s held 60% of the UK’s savings and are responsible for 40% of consumer demand, spending £200bn per year. The 18–59 year old group is forecast to grow by 7% in comparison to the older market which is forecast to grow by 81% from 2005 to 2030.
The market is real today. It’s not emerging and it’s ready to be disrupted in the way the IPod changed the way people listen to music. This reflects a significant opportunity for companies ready to address the needs of people as they age.
The scale of the opportunity is multiplied by designing future-facing solutions for today’s 45–75 year olds rather than today’s 85+ year olds. The key is to shift the mainstream market and develop inter-generational products and services rather than creating specialist markets for over 50s … we all know the reaction when you’re told this has been designed for an older person!!!
The big opportunity for the UK is to become the worlds ‘Age-Tech’ leader, highly achievable through harnessing our entrepreneurial spirit and world-class design talent. Bringing the two together will help us capitalise on one of the world’s biggest market opportunities.
“There’s a huge need for new products, services and business models to help people live healthier, happier and more independent lives as they age. Design has a major role to play and can encourage us to take a person-centred approach to innovation, from new products helping people maintain health at work to aids and adaptations enabling people to live independently at home for as long as they want.” Anna Dixon, CEO, Centre for Ageing Better
Full details of stage one trailblazer applications can be found at: https://www.ukri.org/innovation/industrial-strategy-challenge-fund/healthy-ageing/
For further information contact: John Mathers on john.mathers2@btinternet.com or Julian Grice on julianmpgrice@gmail.com
