who cares for the carers?
our societies are ageing, our young people cannot expect lifestyles, jobs, home ownership, pensions, like our own
and yet we’re dumping the burden of our care on them
without a plan and without resources
love and care is deliberately lighthearted but with serious intent;
to draw attention to these challenges, to find solutions where possible
and raise hell where necessary
…meanwhile, some resources and a little light reading
Doctor Atul Gawande interview in Der Spiegel regarding end of life care…his book, Being Mortal and what Matters in the End is a manifesto in itself, dealing with care and dying in a sensitive and revolutionary way…
The Guardian review is clickable through the image
I’m hugely interested in new ways of living with dementia and here is one example of forward thinking, as so often from the Danes, for whom it seems the well being of society as a whole is a priority…click on the image for more
• Over 1.2 million people aged 65+ don’t receive all the care and support they need with essential daily living activities – this rises to over 1.5 million when you take into account instrumental activities of daily living such as managing medication
• There are now over 2 million carers aged 65+, of these more than 400,000 are aged over 80. Amongst the oldest carers (80+) 37% are providing 20 hours or more of care a week, and 34% are providing 35 hours or more
• 1 in 5 social care providers were rated as inadequate or requiring improvement by the Care Quality Commission in 2017
• Tightened eligibility criteria have led to an estimated 25% reduction – more than 400,000 – in the number of older people accessing publicly funded care since 2009/10
• There are nearly 12 million (11,989,322) people aged 65 and above in the UK of which: o 5.4 million people are aged 75+, o 1.6 million are aged 85+, o Over 500,000 people are 90+ (579,776) o 14,430 are centenarians (ONS, 2018f, 2018e).
• The number of centenarians living in the UK has increased 85% in the past 15 years (ONS, 2018f). • By 2030 it is anticipated there will be over 21,000 centenarians (ONS, 2017b).
• In 50 years there are projected to be an additional 8.6 million people aged 65 years and over – a population roughly equivalent to the size of London (ONS, 2018k).
• By 2030, one in five people in the UK (21.8%) will be aged 65 or over, 6.8% will be aged 75+ and 3.2% will be aged 85+ (ONS, 2017b).
• The 85+ age group is the fastest growing and is set to double to 3.2 million by mid-2041 and treble by 2066 (5.1 million; 7% of the UK population) (ONS, 2018k).
if you have ideas you’d like to share, if you have experience of best practice around the world or from other times and places in history, please get in touch…use the contact form
we must call on the best of radical new thinking and best practices of traditional attitudes to later life much of which has been swept away by our relentless fetishising of youth and by the ravages of unbridled markets and fiscal inequality
…things can be changed