A chat with our new CEO With two decades of experience in the public and third sectors, including time as chief executive of the Sight Scotland group, Mark O’Donnell joined Age Scotland as the charity’s CEO in January. We put him in the hot seat to find out about his plans and to get to know him better. What are the biggest challenges facing older people in Scotland? There are many, but I think the cost of living crisis is making pre-existing challenges worse. It is also dragging lots of older people into personal and social difficulties that they might never have previously imagined they would face. Woven through all of that are the ongoing major problems of loneliness and isolation, which are only intensified by economic hardship. Difficulties with access to timely and person-centred health and social care – and wider public services – is another issue. Then, of course there are big cultural challenges about negative perceptions of older age.
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