Surrey Comet Families: Advice for Parents in Kingston, Elmbridge, Surrey & London

Watch Sebastian Coe talk about ways to be more active day-to-day.

Keep on the road for longer details the health and social care services available to people aged 50 or over (leaflet cover pictured).

Whatever your situation, using the NHS services that are available can help you to protect your independence as you grow older. Keeping physically active, eating a balanced diet and maintaining a healthy weight will all increase your chance of a healthier and happier later life. Prevention is better than cure.

Evidence shows that your lifestyle can have an enormous impact on your health as you grow older.

People who are physically active, eat well and maintain a healthy weight are less likely to get heart disease, diabetes and certain cancers or have a stroke.

Being physically active can also be good for your mood, your energy and your self-confidence. It’s a great way to meet new people too.

There's a lot of information and advice on NHS Choices to help you be active and eat well. For example:

• Read the Good food section, full of practical advice on how to eat a healthy diet.
• Watch this video on how other older people stay active.
• Watch Professor Sir Muir Gray explain how you can walk an extra 3,000 steps a day, and the health benefits you can get from it.

NHS services can help you to stay well and keep living life the way you want to.

Knowing what services are available and what you are entitled to can make practical and positive differences to your day-to-day life. For example, with the right help you could stay in your own home instead of having to move into residential care.

In this section of NHS Choices, Stay well over 50, you can learn more about some of the services available to you.

• Footcare services can stop the development of more serious health problems and help you to move around without feeling pain.
• Falls prevention services can help you if you’ve fallen or are worried after falling. Strength and balance classes can make a fall less likely, and so can changes to your home such as putting in handrails.
• Intermediate care can help keep you in your own home during a period of illness or limited mobility, or help you return from a hospital stay sooner.
• Telecare services can help you keep living in your own home, by providing a personal alarm linked to medical care and devices to help you monitor your own health.