Ageing Population and Unsustainable Costs in Health and Social Care: Contemporary Debates

This essay discusses the concept of ageing among the UK population and presents an argument against the view that ageing is responsible for unsustainable costs in health and social care. It also covers effective policies to deal with the enhancing well-being and social care costs.

Contemporary Debates

Table of Content.
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
The public of the United Kingdom has generally undergone a crucial alteration in its age
structure, with having multiple people having less children as well as the living longer lives. An
an outcome, the average age of the public of the United Kingdom is enhancing. In this, it has an
essential implication for the entire community. The enhancing as well as living within a
community where the younger people are generally at a majority is quite fundamentally unique
to enhancing up within the community where the huge amount of people are in their old age
group (Ageing: Global population, 2010). There are various older people who can face issues
with the well-being so they generally require to ensure that there are adequate high quality well-
being and care services available in order to meet the needs of every people. In the report, the
essay will cover the concept of ageing among UK population who is responsible for an
unsustainable costs within the well-being and social care as well. In this, the essay will presents
an argument against the view that the ageing is quite responsible for an unsustainable costs. In
addition to this, there is a discussion about the effective policies that has been put in place to
effectively deal with the enhancing well-being and social care costs.
MAIN BODY
The ageing of the nation's population is generally an outcome of the continued downfall
within the fertility rates as well as enhanced the expectancies of the living. Such alterations in the
demographic has outcome in enhancing the numbers as well as the proportions of the people who
are above the age of 60. as per this, the well-being profile for England report generally presents
that though the people are living a longer than various years, the people are not essentially living
the healthier lives as well. An ageing population can generally leads to the cost pressure if the
older people are more likely to improve the chronic conditions with having the various
morbidities, that are more costly to treat. Within the year 2014, the medium age of the public
within the United Kingdom can specifically exceeds 40 for the first time, up from about 34 years
within the year 1974. In this, the gradual enhancement within the life expectancy as well as an
average age that is seen during the twentieth century are generally projected to continue (Ageing
and health expenditure, 2019).
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In this, over the 70% of the population growth of the United Kingdom among the year
2014 and 2039 will be over the 60 age years group, an enhancement from the 15 to 22 million
people. In this, the ageing of the population generally refers to an alteration within the structure
of age of the public within UK, within which the majority of the proportion of the old age group
is enhancing significantly. It is mainly driven by the specific two trends such as the historically
low fertility rates and the declining mortality rates as well. In context with the low fertility rates
generally means the less young people are entering the population. In context with the declining
rates of mortality, mainly the public over the age group of 65 age years are mainly leading to an
enhancement in the number of the old age groups (The UK’s ageing population, 2021).
There are generally the two drivers of the ageing public such as the declining fertility and
the mortality rates are both the long-term trends. Within UK, the public has experienced almost
about 40 years of the fertility rates below the replacement levels of the 2.1 children per female.
Within the year 2014, the total fertility rates within England and Wales was about 2% children
per mother as compared with a peak of 3 in the year 1964. In addition to this, the long term fall
within the mortality rates generally has been strong within the old age group. Such that the
mortality rates of the female in the past 80s has generally been fall about 120 per the thousand
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Illustration 1: Estimation and projection of the population within UK.

populations within the 1950s to the 75 by the year past 1990s and fell from around 160 to 120
per the thousand male in the similar period.
The ageing population as well as enhancing the life expectancies generally have
numerous implications. One of its most essential factor is that there can be reduced proportion of
a person to pay the taxes, work as well as can give an effective care for those vulnerable people
who are in need. For such reasons, growing older within the community that can itself raising
older is essentially unique to raise old within the public where most of the people are young (The
UK’s ageing population, 2021). In this, an old age group encouragement is generally one of the
pathway to evaluate the proportion of the population which can be working, paying the taxes as
well as giving such care within the community. In addition to this, an enhanced expectancies of
life is generally an outcome of various societal as well as scientific successes. Within the first
decade of the twenty first century, the well-being expectancies of living at the time of birth
generally rose more than the life expectancy. It can particularly depict that a decline of the years
can spent in the diseased well-being. Therefore, an enhancement within the healthy life
expectancies that is evaluated at the age group above 65 are specifically spending more time
within the diseased well-being. However, to a lesser extent of the trend which can be repeated,
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Illustration 2: Overall Fertility within Wales and England between the year 1960 till
2014.

there has been an another challenge for an ageing public which is more likely to be an enhancing
prevalence of the well-being conditions that are linked with the old age group people. In addition
to this, an ageing public can also have the specific inference for the workforce. With involving a
gradual enhancement within the age of retirement, the old age group people within the
employment are on the ascent. But there are still the specific obstructions which can significantly
prevent the old age group people from taking a full part in the market. Furthermore, being treated
unfavourably or passed over for the support only because of age are still a problem that is being
face daily within the workplace, that is required to be done in order to overcome such
antagonistic stereotypes.
Though there are a lot of arguments in support of the view that ageing is responsible for
unsustainable cost in health and social care but there exist arguments which are against the view.
The elderly people are susceptible to being sick which is unavoidable but their need of
multidisciplinary treatment being considered the only contributor to the unsustainable costing in
the health care industry is inequitable. As per the present trend of lifestyle choices by the youth
of any nation, there is an increase in the expenses of the health care treatment to provide
treatment for cases of substance abuse, alcoholism and other sort of addictions. These are also an
additional and fluctuating addition to the cost spend by the health care settings on care providing.
As per the breakdown of ages in United Kingdom, the youth accounts for approximately 63
percent and the old age people account for about 19 percent of the total population. The lifestyle
choices of this much percentage of people will have a greater effect on the overall health of the
population. It has observed in the past few years that there has been an increased trend of making
poor lifestyle choices amongst the young generation of the nation. When, considering the
lifestyle choice of old age people, such people always try to maintain a healthy lifestyle in order
to increase the longevity of their life but due to the old age they suffer from various diseases
which is sort of by default in nature. The contribution of the of age people to the unsustainable
cost of the health care would be less when compared to the higher percentage of young people
with poor lifestyle choices. These choices indirectly decide the quality of life of these people
(Costantini and Sforna, 2020).
Ill lifestyle related choices like poor eating habits, substance abuse, increased stress in the
daily life, excluding physical exercise routines, these contribution in increased frequency of
hospital visits by these people. The cost of providing treatment to old age people is quite
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inevitable but the cost of treatment for such lifestyle related issues can be avoided. The reduced
strength of the immunity because of poor lifestyle choices result in easy acquiring of infectious
diseases and also result in acquiring of chronic diseases which require being on treatment for
their entire remaining life. When considering the view of comparison between the social care
which is an extended branch of the health care industry, it is true that the old age people require
social care settings as they require assistance in performing all the daily life activities. But this is
also equated by the requirement of rehabilitation centres by the people who are receiving
treatment for substance abuse, alcoholism or smoking addiction. Therefore the factor of
requirement of social care homes by the old age people can also be not considered the reason for
being a contributor to the unsustainable costing in the health care industry. The youth of the
nation is equally responsible for the contribution to this issue (Fransham and Blood, 2018).
Within UK, the policymakers are generally confronted with various inter-associated
problems, consisting a fall within the working age population, an enhanced well-being care costs,
an unsustainable pension commitments as well as altering demand drivers as well. The
population age within the area of Europe, an enhancing figure of the old age group people with
having a functional restrictions generally require encouragement with the specific daily living
actions. Among adults, the enhancing prevalence of the dementia generally enhanced the
demand for such support. Most of the care is generally given informally at the home care. In
addition to this, the public can empower an informal care providing is generally one of the most
essential public policy evaluate for the future sustainability of well-being and social care within
the ageing population. While talking about the young people, they are generally more prone
towards the leading causes of illness. Today's youth are mainly adopting such unhealthy lifestyle
due to which they can acquire the illnesses such as cardiovascular illness, diabetes, obesity and
many more. To overcome all the issues among young and older adults, the UK government has
taken specific steps to make the UK public much more healthy. They conducted some campaigns
or activities for the public so that the government of United Kingdom can able to provide
education or can able to aware the public about the leading causes of such illness and the specific
effects of unhealthy lifestyle choices, inadequate physical exercises, depression and many more
(Diprose and Valentine, 2019).
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CONCLUSION
From the above discussion, it is concluded that an ageing public can generally lead to an
enhancing cost pressures via an enhanced well-being and social care cost and the expenditure
over the pensions. Therefore, it has been effectively balanced against the added values to the
economy due to an enhanced revenue from both direct as well as indirect taxation and the caring
and volunteering actions as well. In this, there is above arguments present which is about the
young people are generally more prone towards the leading cause of disease such as
cardiovascular illness, diabetes, cancer and many more. In addition to this, the older people can
easily acquire these such illnesses but among young people, these can only be caused due to their
unhealthy living lifestyle, inadequate amount of daily physical exercise. Furthermore, the
depression, anxiety levels can also contribute towards these such illnesses. Hence, it is proved
through the argument presented that the young generation are generally more prone towards the
illnesses and having adverse impact over their well-being.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Burki, T., 2019. GP at hand: a digital revolution for health care provision?. The
Lancet, 394(10197), pp.457-460.
Costantini, V. and Sforna, G., 2020. A dynamic CGE model for jointly accounting ageing
population, automation and environmental tax reform. European Union as a case
study. Economic Modelling, 87, pp.280-306.
Dieter, H., 2020. Inequality and social problems in Hong Kong: the reasons for the broad support
of the unrest. Australian Journal of International Affairs, 74(4), pp.341-347.
Diprose, K. and Valentine, G., 2019. Climate change, consumption and intergenerational
justice: Lived experiences in China, Uganda and the UK. Bristol University Press.
Fransham, L. and Blood, I., 2018. Supporting older people using attachment-informed and
strengths-based approaches. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Greenland, S.J., 2019. Future sustainability, innovation and marketing: A framework for
understanding impediments to sustainable innovation adoption and corporate social
responsibility. In The components of sustainable development (pp. 63-80). Springer,
Singapore.
Moody, L., York, N., Ozkan, G. and Cobley, A., 2019. Bringing assistive technology innovation
and material science together through design. In Innovation in Medicine and Healthcare
Systems, and Multimedia (pp. 305-315). Springer, Singapore.
Terada-Hagiwara, A., Van Rijn, H. and Park, D., 2018. Three Features of Aging in the People’s
Republic of China and Implications for Development Agenda.
Tumialán, L.M., 2019. Healthcare systems in the United States. In Quality Spine Care (pp. 155-
169). Springer, Cham.
Wakefield, A. and Axon, S., 2020. “I’ma bit of a waster”: Identifying the enablers of, and
barriers to, sustainable food waste practices. Journal of Cleaner Production, 275,
p.122803.
Wolfe, I., Satherley, R.M., Scotney, E., Newham, J. and Lingam, R., 2020. Integrated care
models and child health: a meta-analysis. Pediatrics, 145(1).
Online:
Ageing and health expenditure, 2019 [Online] Available through:
<https://ukhsa.blog.gov.uk/2019/01/29/ageing-and-health-expenditure/>
Ageing: Global population, 2010 [Online] Available through: <https://www.who.int/news-
room/questions-and-answers/item/population-ageing>
The UK’s ageing population, 2021 [Online] Available through:
<https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9239/>
The UK’s ageing population, 2021 [Online] Available through:
<https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/the-uks-ageing-population/120576/>
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