Live Longer Better
  • Your journey
    • More About the Optimal Ageing Programme >
      • About Muir Gray
      • Muir Gray's publications
    • Coping with Lockdown
    • Using the right words right; ageing, fitness, disease and beliefs >
      • Bad language about older people
    • The Lockdown Wellbeing Programme >
      • The Daily Mail series
    • the Daily Dozen + 30 for 4S fitness
    • What is happening as we live longer >
      • Your monthly briefing
    • LLL for LLB
    • The environment is tough >
      • Retirement has benefits and risks >
        • Join the Challenge Hub
      • Some people got a better start than others
      • the impact of isolation is now recognised
      • The physical environment is the cause of many problems blamed on ageing
      • Poverty affects too many older people
    • the Living Longer Better Programme >
      • what would a good life in your late 80s be likel
      • What do you fear most and want to avoid
      • Start to write your Living Longer Better Plan
      • Think positive
    • How to reduce your risk of a bad death
    • My diary & daily routine
    • My health record
    • My housing
    • Othercare - Supporting someone else
    • About the OxAP >
      • Muir Gray's Bookshop >
        • The Antidote To Ageing
        • Midlife
        • Sod60!
        • Sod70!
        • Get Moving
        • Eatwell!
        • Dr Gray's Walking Cure
      • Here is the news
  • Get physically better
    • Increase strength, stamina, suppleness and skill >
      • Strength
      • Stamina
      • Skill
      • Suppleness
      • Work hard
      • Brisk walking >
        • Virtual Walking
        • Restart Sport >
          • Restart swimming
          • Restart tennis
          • Restart football
          • Restart cycling
          • Virtual Cycling
      • If you have difficulty walking briskly
      • Join a Gym or Wellness Hub >
        • Meet others for fitness >
          • Silver sneakers
          • Age UK Generation games
          • Join a Gym, Fitness Centre or Wellness Hub
          • Find a personal trainer
      • Find a Trainer
    • Reduce your risk of disease >
      • Eat Well
      • Stop smoking
      • Increase activity - physical, cognitive and emotional
      • Watch the alcohol
      • Accept the offers from the NHS screening programmes
      • We need a revolution
    • Look after your body >
      • Happy and Positive Birthday >
        • Sod 60!
        • Sod70!
        • Sod It! Eat Well
        • Sod Sittin, Get Moving!
      • Skin maintenance
      • Teeth and gum maintenance
      • Feet maintenance
      • Bone, joint and muscle maintenance
      • Bowel maintenance
      • Brain maintenance
      • Mind maintenance
      • Heart maintenance
      • Lung maintenance
      • Waterworks maintenance for men
      • Waterworks maintenance for women
      • See as clearly as possible
      • Keep your Hearing as acute as possible
    • If disease occurs - Optimise Your Healthcare >
      • Living with a common condition >
        • Arthritis
        • Cancer
        • COPD _ Bronchitis
        • Diabetes
        • Dementia
        • Heart disease
        • Parkinson's Disease
        • Stroke
      • Making a big decision >
        • Should i have a hip replacement ?
      • Consequences of common conditions >
        • Loss of status
        • Disability and handicap
        • Isolation
        • Depression
        • Frailty
      • Look out for social as well as drug prescribing >
        • Enjoy Activity Therapy
      • What you can do to help the NHS even more
  • Think better
    • Train your brain ; we now know the brain can get fitter at any age
    • Understanding Dementia & Alzheimer's Disease
    • Reduce your risk of dementia >
      • Stimulate your brain more every year >
        • Learning new skills and build on your assets
        • Get even more engaged
      • Protect your brain >
        • Sleep better
        • Get more active
        • Avoid over medication
        • Control stress levels
        • Air pollution and dementia
      • Keep the oxygen flowing
    • Combat depression
  • Feel better
    • Stay engaged and don't lose your sense of purpose
    • Feel even better by helping other people even more
    • Meet others like you
    • Optimise the Internet >
      • My Virtual Reality
    • Join others for a Daily Service
    • Feel better by visiting Great Places >
      • Visit the great Museums
      • Visit the great libraries
      • Visit a National Trust treasure
    • Feel better through music >
      • Join a concert party
      • Your virtual choir
      • Music for Moving
    • Feel better by reading, listening and watching with other people >
      • Kindling Book Club >
        • Crime
        • Classics
        • Health
      • Audible Book Club
      • Your BBC
      • Your Film Club
    • Feel better by learning new skills and ideas
    • Feel better by joining a club to play games and meet others >
      • Chess Club
      • Bingo club
      • Bridge Club
    • Feel better by supporting nature >
      • Visit the great gardens
    • Feeling Better by Going Down Memory Lane >
      • Sporting memories are powerful
  • Understand better
    • Ageing is a normal biological process
    • From 40 to 90 loss of fitness is serious
    • The effects of disease are often compounded by loss of fitness
    • Negative beliefs and attitudes have a huge impact
    • The importance of planning with purpose
    • The Ageing Brain and the Maturing Mind
    • Strength and Power can always be increased
    • Skill and co-ordination can be improved at any age
    • Stamina can be improved by brisk walking
    • Suppleness can always be improved and stiffness always reduced
    • Activity Therapy is of vital importance

Meet the Team



MUIR GRAY

​Muir Gray entered the Public Health Service by joining the City of Oxford Health Department in 1972 after qualifying in medicine in Glasgow, the city of his birth

The first phase of his professional career in 1971 focused on disease prevention, for example on helping people stop smoking. He also developed a local, then national programme of work to promote  health in old age, at a time before the implications of population ageing had been recognised. Based on work in Oxford he developed a number of national initiatives, particularly designed to prevent hospital admission and facilitate hospital discharge, including preventing hypothermia, publishing a Fabian Society  report on the relationship between housing and poverty and the excess winter death, that took place in the United Kingdom. He was the Secretary of ASH Action on Smoking and Health

Then he developed all the screening programmes in the NHS, for pregnant women, children, adults and older people for example offering man aged sixty five screening for abdominal aortic aneurysm and , for both men and women, screening for colorectal cancer. He also developed services to bring knowledge to patients and professionals.  Working on the principle that the delivery of clean clear knowledge was analogous to the provision of clean clear water he saw the  organisation and delivery of knowledge as a public health service, for example developing NHS Choices www.nhs.uk, which now has over 40 million visits a month, and setting up the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine in Oxford. During this period he was appointed as the Chief Knowledge Officer of the NHS and was awarded both a CBE and later a Knighthood for services for the NHS.

He is a Visiting Professor in Knowledge Management in the Nuffield Department of Surgery, and a Professor in the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences where he leads work on Evidence Based Medicine and Value He set up charities to promote urban walking and an Oxford based Centre for Sustainable Healthcare. He set up the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare and Better Value Healthcare  and has published a series of  How To Handbooks for example, How `to Get Better Value Healthcare, How To Build Healthcare Systems andHow To Create the Right Healthcare Culture.His hobby is ageing and how to cope with it 

Here is what he says about his health "I am a fairly typical healthy 76 year old, I had an attack of polio when i was seven which left my right leg a little thinner than my left, but I could still play sport, then at 12 I developed acute kidney failure but in the days before dialysis was lucky enough to recover. also i grew up in a filthy city, Glasgow before the Clean Air Act, and my parents smoked. This will be typical of many people who are 70 plus today.  Then about seven years ago I had heart attack, although at 'low risk' but made a very good recovery, thanks to a stent in one of my arteries. To stay healthy i try to walk briskly using the www.nhs.uk/oneyou app, eat a mediterranean diet, minimise stress and sleep eight hours a night, and every year i try to take more action against ageing for example by increasing the time spent stretching. since then i have had two adventures. i tripped running for a train , which was late and broke 7 ribs, 5 of them in two places, then a year later i developed severe sciatica and am still a little weak in my left leg."

KEY PUBLICATIONS 

​The Antidote to Ageing 

Sod60!
Sod70!
SodSitting! get Moving!
Sod It ,Eat Well!

Midlife Look Younger, Live Longer, Feel Better

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