Our population is getting older. As health standards, medicine and treatments improve we are all living longer. Today, one in five people in the UK are aged over 65 – that’s 11 million people. This has grown by 1% in just the last four years and this is projected to reach 22% of the population by 2032.
This is of course good news for us as individuals, but this good news also brings challenges. With more elderly people in our society, there is more of a need for care. This can create a strain on the government and this in turn can lead to neglect and suffering for the seniors and their families.
In fact, today almost 1 in 5 people of pension age are living in poverty with the inequalities in today’s society being at their most extreme within older generations. As we age our health often fails of course and this too provides it’s difficulties with 41% of seniors suffering from poor health.
It’s at this difficult time that we need the support of those around us but sadly 1.5 million seniors are struggling without the help they need and this is projected to grow to 2.1 million by 2030 – a 40% increase in just 8 years.
Much of this is due to the rapid growth in our population but this also has to be coupled with a social care system that has been under resourced in recent years. Indeed, between 2009/10 and 2018/19 health spending increased by only 1.5% – significantly behind population growth, before inflation is taken into consideration.
Amongst all of this negativity there is some light however. A recent survey of the general population of the UK by Deliberate Impact shows that, not only is there a high awareness of the poor situation in elderly care but also that and nearly one in five says that elderly care is the cause that matter the most to them compared to other major causes such as climate crisis and mental health. This is further supported by the Centre for Better Ageing who have stated that an age-inclusive approach to promoting the general well-being of a community is of high importance.
This may seem surprising at first but, as people we care most about our loved ones – those that directly impact our lives. As more of our loved ones move into care, this cause becomes increasingly important to all of us. This is especially true in today’s difficult economic landscape.
In fact, elderly care was shown to be a leading concern when compared to cancer treatment, mental health and the climate crisis. When we consider that 3 in 10 people who have difficulty carrying out basic tasks never received any assistance and we put ourselves in the shoes of their family members, this is further reinforced.
Yet, with this clear priority from the general population donations to elderly care are below the other causes. There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly this cause remains one that many believe is for the government to solve. Whilst there is certainly some validity to that argument, the fact is that this will not be solved by the state alone – at least not in the short term. Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, this cause receives very little press. It is not ‘sexy’ to get behind elderly care. Celebrities will put their names to environmental, cancer and mental health charities but it is rare to find one, especially one who is not elderly themselves, talking about elderly care.
There are of course crowd sourcing platforms and charities that the public can donate to but, whilst many do good work, none are dedicated to the broad set of initiatives needed to solve these problems. It is hard to give to a local care home or a small, private initiative for the elderly and none raise awareness as they should for this important cause.As a result it is clear that, whilst the population are aware of the issue and want to support it, it is not brought front of mind for them nor made easy to do so. The UK population donate £11 billion every year to charity. Elderly care receives just 7% of this. What if we could shift this percentage just a bit higher? The impact can only be imagined, and many of the issues above could be solved.
Deliberate Impact 