Older people from an African, Caribbean, and South Asian heritage - their views on support, information and advice

In 2023, Healthwatch Sheffield worked with Age UK Sheffield to understand how organisations that support older people can make their services more accessible and culturally appropriate for a wider demographic across the city. 

This work was prompted after noticing a lack of ethnic diversity in Age UK Sheffield's clients, but the project team wanted to make sure these findings could support a variety of other organisations in Sheffield to develop their support, information and advice services too. 

To do this they asked people about the resources and places they currently use for support, as well as the barriers they are experiencing, and what a good service would look like to them.

Key findings

The findings are based on semi-structured interviews and focus groups with 31 older people from African, Caribbean and South Asian heritage living in Sheffield. These were carried out between January and March 2023. 

• People spoke about the difficulties of finding appropriate health and social care services that would understand their needs.
• People from African, Caribbean, Asian and minoritised ethnic groups face additional barriers to accessing services - practical issues like lack of interpreters, and structural concerns around racism and lack of trust.
• A service that would work well for people should be culturally sensitive, use appropriate communication, and promote independence. 
• Older people need more and better information about what is available to them, and want services to be based in the communities that they know

The report includes recommendations for how city-wide services can make their offer more accessible and inclusive. For example, working with diverse communities on designing and distributing their information resources, better representing different communities in Sheffield within the services they're accessing, and locating organisations in the communities they are serving.