Director of Public Health Annual Report 2025/26:
Healthy Ageing

Two walkers in Torbay looking out to sea.

Looking After Our Tomorrows

Introduction

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Health, happiness, and longer life

Torbay Council’s motto is Health and Happiness. It doesn’t mention living a long life. But today, most people in Torbay can expect to live into their 80s. Often, when people talk about ageing, they focus on the problems—especially for health and social care. Many see ageing as a challenge. So how can living longer fit with health and happiness?

Living longer

In the mid-1800s, infections caused over half of all deaths, and many children died before the age of 5. Reaching 80 was very rare. Today, childhood deaths are uncommon, and living into older age is normal.

This change happened because of things like:
Better food and clean water
Modern medicines and vaccines
Public health measures
Better prevention and treatment of diseases like heart disease and cancer

Life expectancy (the average number of years people live) has grown because of these improvements. Longer life often means a healthier population overall. But living longer doesn’t always mean living well—especially for people in disadvantaged situations.

What does ageing mean?

Ageing is more than just getting older. It’s different for everyone. Knowing what healthy ageing looks like helps us tell if complaints are normal features of growing older or signs of disease.

If we assume poor health is unavoidable with age, we can miss chances to:
Prevent illness and disability
Help people stay independent
Improve quality of life

Negative attitudes toward ageing can also make us overlook older adults’ rights and contributions to society.

Are we ready?

We’ve been slow to adapt to our ageing population. In Torbay about half of our residents are now over 50. Many will live to 85. The big question is: will those extra years be lived in illness and disability, or in health and wellbeing?

This report aims at helping us understand how we can work together to help people live long and healthy lives in Torbay.

Dr Lincoln Sargeant

Director of Public Health

Thank you to all those who have been part of the development of this, Director of Public Health’s annual report.

This report sets out to be accessible. You can access three different resources:

The following web pages have the main content including films and images. Each page can be read to you if preferred.

If you’re looking for a detailed report, please access the technical report below.

Technical-report-v1.1AAAC Download

For a quick scan please access the easy read version created in collaboration with Torbay Learning Disability Ambassadors below.

Torbay-Public-Health-Annual-Report-3-EASY-READ AAP AC Download

What is Ageing?

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