The NHS should prioritise its elderly population when planning Neighbourhood Health Services. This is one of the recommendations of Age UK in its State of Health and Care of Older People report.
In its tenth anniversary, this report finds there are stark and growing inequalities in older people’s health and access to services. It reveals a troubling picture of declining health among an ageing population, unequal access to services and growing pressures on unpaid carers and frontline staff, and calls for rapid change to meet the needs of an ageing population.
The report shows that while the number of older people in the UK continues to rise, healthy life expectancy at age 65 has declined, the number of full-time equivalent GPs has not kept pace with the rapidly ageing population and there are fewer older people receiving social care support compared to a decade ago. Most services are over-stretched and unpaid carers and staff alike are under intense pressure. Many older people who need help from the NHS or social care cannot access it quickly – and sometimes not at all.
Whilst Age UK welcomes the establishment of the independent Commission led by Baroness Louise Casey to report on social care, it urges the Government to bring forward the deadline of 2028 for this commission to publish its report by at least a year, to 2027 if not earlier.
Caroline Abrahams, Charity Director at Age UK, says: “If we’re to transform the NHS and make it more effective, older people must be an explicit priority for the new Neighbourhood Health Service, because they are occupying the great majority of hospital beds when in many cases it would be better for them to stay at home with good treatment and support. This must include the right social care as well as health support, so ensuring social care is fully part of Neighbourhood Health is crucial. Local voluntary organisations such as our local Age UKs must be fully brought in too; they are invaluable local assets that do important things the NHS and social care can’t, like help people who are lonely or who have housing issues – problems that when unaddressed accelerate health and care needs.
“The decade that has passed since we first started producing these reports has been largely wasted as regards the need to adapt Health and Care for a growing older population, even though the trend in population ageing has been so obvious it should have been visible from outer space. With the 10 Year Health Plan we’re now finally trying to do the right things but much later than we should be and at a time when there’s less public money available to invest compared to ten years ago. That’s why we have to go as fast as we possibly can now in achieving transformational change in community-based health and care services, as the NHS will never run optimally until this task is complete.”
Call for action
Age UK is calling on the Government to make older people an explicit priority cohort for Neighbourhood Health and set some specific targets to reduce the number of emergency admissions for acute and chronic conditions that should be managed in the community as well as the delayed discharges that keep people in hospital beds when they should be recovering at home. It also makes some recommendations for the upcoming NHS workforce strategy.
