More older people are becoming homeless or having to live in temporary accommodation, and are “suffering in ways never seen before”, according to a specialist.

Jacky Bourke-White, CEO of Age UK Lewisham and Southwark, told Southwark Council’s health and wellbeing board that while the area was getting richer, older generations were often being left behind.

“We have the sixth most deprived older population in the country and that is often overlooked,” she said.

“As the borough is getting richer we ignore the fact that our older population is being left behind. They are suffering from that in ways that we have never seen before, so we see more and more homeless people and more people in temporary accommodation.”

She said many older people who were struggling are isolated as their families could not afford to live in the borough.

“Sons and daughters have been unable to buy homes in the borough, to stay in the borough, [and] they tend to live two or three hours outside of the borough.

“And that creates its own problems for older people. We have this incredibly vulnerable older population left behind by the pace of change in the borough.”

She said it was “horrifying” the borough could not afford to extend in-home care visits to one hour, or enable older people to leave their houses.

“It would be really good if of those older people getting three visits a day, which means, they have quite a high level of need, there is not a lot they can do for themselves – at the point that you are getting three visits a day you cannot get yourself out of bed, you cannot wash yourself, you cannot dress yourself, you cannot feed yourself – I am saying wouldn’t it be good if one of those visits was for an hour? If one of those visits was unhurried?” she explained.

“Every older person should be able to go out a minimum of once a week. They should be supported to get out of the house and do something.

“It’s terrible these days we live in a society that older people, once you are that frail, your life is so circumscribed and that we as a society cant afford this as a bare minimum,” she said.