Analysis

Report calls for household products to cater for older users

26th May 2015
Jordan Mulcare
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The Institution of Mechanical Engineers is today calling for Government and industry to ensure major infrastructure projects and more household products are designed to cater for older users. The recent report, 21st Century Engineering for an Ageing Population, makes five key recommendations about how engineering and engineers could play a role in meeting the needs of the increasing number of older people in the UK.

The report’s recommends that the Government and industry must ensure that all major contracts for public infrastructure have an earmarked budget to cater for older users and customers.The report also suggets the UK Government’s innovation agency, Innovate UK, should put out a call for bids to create state-of-the-art design initiatives for older user-friendly ideas and products.

The report recommends that companies developing household products, vehicles or other devices for mainstream use should introduce quotas in product design teams, to include, wherever possible, a significant proportion of older people, some of whom may be retired professional engineers.

Standards relating to engineering products should also be reviewed to ensure that they are keeping pace with the needs of their ever-growing application to older people in the UK and the rest of the world, as the report suggets. The report also recommends Universities, colleges and industry should ensure that training of engineers and designers includes information about the functional abilities and restrictions of older people.

The number of older people is fast increasing: in 1985 just 15% of the population was over 65 years old; this rose to 17% in 2010 and is set to reach 23% by 2035. In terms of the population of 85+, this is expected double over the next 20 years and is predicted to treble in the next 30 years.

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