Advocacy provision is patchy in England

One-to-one advocacy provision for older people is thin on the ground and unevenly distributed across England, a national mapping exercise has found.

The survey by representative body the Older People’s Advocacy Alliance UK found just 136 bodies providing the service across the country, and just over 5,000 older people were being served by the 121 organisations that reported user numbers.

Only 16 of the 136 were specialist older people’s advocacy bodies, and none was in the North East or the West Midlands. Most were more generic organisations with advocacy functions within them.

Many organisations that had been on the alliance’s database had ceased to exist and many projects were “very much dependent on short-term funding sources”.