Pressure on the care sector set to increase

Pressure on the care sector is set to increase as people live for longer, yet spend nearly half of their retirement in ill health.

The Office for National Statistics Pension Trends Report shows although life expectancy is rising, pensioners spend nearly half of their retirement with long-term health problems, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The report revealed men aged 65 will spend nearly eight years of their 17.6 years of life expectancy in ill health.

While 65-year-old women will spend nearly nine years of their 20.2 years of life expectancy in ill health.

These figures indicate that men and women who retired at age 65 could expect to spend 56 per cent and 57 per cent respectively of their retirement in good health and 58 per cent and 55 per cent respectively of their retirement free from disability, said the Office for National Statistics.

Tom Scott, director of the Care Fees Advice Agency, said: ‘We all need to think harder about how we can plan to meet our future care costs and what as a nation we realistically think the state ought to provide.’

Of all of the countries of the UK, in 2008 (the latest figures) England had the highest life expectancy and disability-free life expectancy for men at 65, and Wales had the highest healthy life expectancy for men at this age.

At the other end of the scale, men in Scotland had the lowest life expectancy, healthy life expectancy and disability free life expectancy. Women aged 65 in England had the highest healthy life expectancy and women in Wales had the highest disability free life expectancy in 2008.

As with men, it was women in Scotland retiring at 65 who were likely to have the shortest retirement period and women in England who were likely to have the longest.

The report said ‘A growing proportion of the population will be likely to require some form of care in later life. Therefore, policy attention is now focusing on the provision of formal and informal care.’

The ONS also predicts that informal care will change.

‘The increases in life expectancy are expected to increase demand for informal care as well as for formal care, while the supply of informal care is changing for other reasons. For example, more people may have to juggle paid work with unpaid caring responsibilities as more women work in mid-life and more people of both sexes work longer. Changes in demographic structure, such as people having fewer children, will also affect the availability of informal care for older people,’ the report added.

The ONS said ‘it is hard to predict the health of future generations of older people, but there is evidence of trends for two health-related factors in recent years: there has been a decline in smoking and an increase in obesity’.

Tom Scott, director of the Care Fees Advice Agency is pictured above