Britain is no country for old men: Britain in 2035 will be even less of a country for old women than old men

Monday, 3 September 2018

Britain in 2035 will be even less of a country for old women than old men

For baby boomers, men and women who are in their late 60s today and will be in their mid 80s in 2035, the future looks grim because a new study, published in the Lancet Public Health Journal, analysed the projected health needs of old people in England between 2015 and 2035 and found that the number of 65-year-olds and over needing round-the-clock care is also set to rise by a third. In addition, those over 85, are projected to more than double by 2035, increasing by 1.5 million.

This is not good news, since many of these old men and women will not be hale and hearty and will develop multiple long-term health conditions, such as dementia and diabetes, leading to increasingly complex care needs. In fact the number of over-85s requiring help throughout the day with tasks such as dressing, bathing and going to the toilet is estimated to almost double to 446,000 by 2035.

Professor Carol Jagger, from the Newcastle University Institute for Ageing and senior author of the study, said the number of unpaid carers is in decline and she warned that relying on unpaid family carers was not sustainable and said : "The challenge is considerable. Our study suggests that older spouse carers are increasingly likely to be living with disabilities themselves. On top of that, extending the retirement age of the UK population is likely to further reduce the informal carer pool, who have traditionally provided for older family members."

She also said this highlighted the importance of focusing on disabling long-term conditions, like arthritis, which were more common in women than men. "The rise in obesity is hitting women harder than men, and men have probably benefited more from the reductions in cardiovascular disease. Women also suffer from a decline in muscle mass, and so I am stressing the importance of physical activity and maintaining strength and balance."

In addition, as they got older men were more likely to remain independent, whereas women will spend almost half of their remaining life with low dependency needs and more years needing intensive 24-hour care.

Nick Forbes, Senior Vice-Chair of the 'Local Government Association', warned that more investment was needed to avoid a crisis and said : "Adult social care services face a £3.5bn funding gap by 2025, just to maintain existing standards of care. The system is at breaking point, ramping up pressures on unpaid carers. There is an urgent need to plug the immediate funding gap and find a long-term solution to how we pay for adult social care."

Caroline Abrahams, Charity Director at 'Age UK', urged the Government to meet the challenge head-on, and said the burden on families was too great. "The problem is that today there are far too few really effective joined-up services, and social care is in sharp decline. The government's top priority must be to steady the ship and then produce a great set of proposals later this year to give our older population confidence they can get the help they need."

Is it likely that Britain's politicians in 2018, embroiled in Brexit, with their parties riven by splits, are going to devote any time, let alone money, solving the problem of how the country is going to pay for the future care needs of millions of old sick old people ?