Growing older as an LGBT person!

The Last Outing is a project to capture the experiences and concerns of older lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people.

The purpose of the project is to inform policy and practice for those receiving health and social care services towards and at the end of life.

The project team from The University of Nottingham will present its findings at a workshop on Tuesday, June 17 followed by a discussion to help shape recommendations for future practice.

The study has involved interviewing LGBT people aged 60 or over and people under 60 who have LGBT partners aged 60 or over.

The workshop is on Tuesday, June 17 from 10am-3.30pm in Highfield House on University Park at the University of Nottingham. It is free to attend but places are limited.

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LGBT discrimination

There is a clear need to change policies regarding end of life care for LGBT people as the English End of Life Care Strategy found LGBT people to be the most likely to face discrimination when it comes to end of life care.

Dr Anne Patterson, Research Fellow at the University, hopes that the workshop will help to further develop the project’s recommendations.

She said: “The research team are hoping to gain perspectives and feedback on the findings, working collaboratively with people who have been participants in the research and others interested in the project and its outcomes.

“Rather than simply presenting a set of findings we want to engage with various audiences, including LGBT people, practitioners and policy makers, to ensure that recommendations are refined in such a way that they are useful and meaningful to both those accessing services and those providing them.”

LGBT people over 60

There has been very little previous research in this area and project lead Dr Kathryn Almack believes this is due to a lack of awareness that end of life care for LGBT people is even an issue. This belief has been reinforced through interviewing LGBT people aged 60 and over.

Dr Almack said: “Very often we’ve found, talking to care providers, they would say ‘oh we don’t have any LGBT clients.’ But statistics say 5-7 per cent of the population is LGBT. They must be using care services — that suggests to us they’re not disclosing sexual orientation or their needs are not being met.”