Population Ageing and its Challenges for Health and Social Care Systems

Does population ageing pose
challenges for health and social care
systems?
Supporting paper

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
Task 1- Debate.................................................................................................................................3
Task 2- Supporting Paper.................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSIONS..............................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
The ageing population in UK is slowly becoming a great challenge for the health care
system of the country. With the increasing population the healthcare system has to face many
issues in the care providing process. This paper will be discussing about the ill effects of the
increasing elderly population on the health industry of UK. In addition to that this paper will also
provide data and statistics from legit sources that will support the notion that ageing population
is indeed a challenge for the health care system.
Task 1- Debate
The rate of ageing of the UK population is a theme and the health industry is really in the
bulls eye of this particular theme. A very Rejuvenating morning to the audience, today my talk
will be in the favour of the notion that ageing population does pose challenges for the health and
social care system. The age structure of the population of United Kingdom have observed a
major change in the past few years. The population is gaining weightage of the people who are
in their sixties or above that. Advancements in the medical field has increased the longevity of
the lives of people and people now a days are living even beyond their seventies. The WHO
states in its statistics obtained by the Global health and Ageing study that “ the number of
individuals of age 65 or even older are foreseen to outweigh the number of children below the
age of five. This increased number of senior citizens in the country is the main reason of
increased mortality due to infectious diseases and chronic disorders. This has also lead to
making the chronic serious disorders of dementia, cardiovascular disorders, alzheimer and
cancer a very common scenario. So the question that begs to be answered is “ does ageing
population poses a challenge for the health and social care system. The cost that is being
invested by the health care system of UK for the care providing to elderly people is making the
dandle board heavy from its side as compared to the cost invested in health care for the young
population. Its already been a fact that the old age people are more prone to be suffering from
multiple disorders and thus require multidisciplinary treatment. Along with these most of the old
age patients also require social care in the end phase of their lives. All these are referred to as
the geriatric syndrome which can consist of a number of disorders most common of which are
refractive disorder, COPD, dementia, depression, cataracts, loss of hearing, urinary
inconsistency falls, delirium etc. All these disorders require major attention by the health care
system and thus results in divergence of the attention and funds of the system more towards
the care provision to elderly patients. This states the saying of Viroj Tangcharoensathein that “
In a way we are the victim of our own success”. The advancement attained by the health