Channel 4 commissions Old People's Home for 4 Year Olds

Social isolation is one of the biggest problems for the elderly in care homes, with over 60% of residents having never received a single visitor. This has a huge impact on their health, wellbeing and even life expectancy. 

Based on an existing American scheme, a revolutionary new experiment for Channel 4 is going to attempt to dramatically improve this by bringing together a group of care home residents with a group of pre-schoolers, to prove that this simple act could add years to the elderly people’s lives. 

In the brand new two part series Old People’s Home For 4 Year Olds (wt), a team of scientists and gerontologists will bring together ten elderly care home residents and ten pre-schoolers for six weeks. The old and young volunteers will share daily activities designed by the experts who will measure and analyse the older groups’ physical and mental progress throughout.

At the end of the six week experiment the experts will hope to prove scientifically that bringing these two generations – divided by almost a lifetime – together, can transform the physical, social and emotional wellbeing of the old volunteers for the better.

Old People’s home for 4 Year Olds (wt) will be a warm, life affirming look at how the UK care home system could be revolutionised.

Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds (wt) was commissioned by Channel 4 commissioning editor Danny Carvalho and will be overseen by Carvalho and Head of Factual Entertainment Kelly Webb-Lamb. The two-part series will be made by CPL Productions (a Red Arrow Entertainment Group company) with executive producers Murray Boland, Trish Powell and Danielle Lux. Red Arrow International will distribute the series and format worldwide.

Kelly Webb-Lamb said: “We are delighted to be working with CPL on this innovative series that tackles an issue that is important to all of us, in a way that is heart-warming and rigorous in equal measure.”

Murray Boland added: “We’ll all be old one day which makes this a subject that has the potential to affect many people. We’re excited to work with Channel 4 on this pioneering project, drawing attention to the impact of loneliness on the health of the elderly.”