Opportunity to design services for the future
Tuesday 23rd August 2011
Despite the focus this summer by the media on phone hacking, Libya, and the economy, we have from time to time seen news on the increasing challenges facing all of us with the implications of an ‘aging society’. The retirement of baby boomers is well documented with some 750,000 people reaching the age of 65 in 2012 the Olympic Year. Perhaps of more startling news is the report that 1 in 3 girls and 1 in 4 boys born today will reach 100 with the first person to reach 120 already born. At the same time the Dilnot Report commissioned by the Government received some modest press coverage. This report is in a long line of reports commissioned by successive governments into finding a solution to the time bomb of old age funding. Unfortunately Governments to date have failed to grasp the nettle of finding a solution to a crisis which is now upon us. Let us hope the coalition Government take seriously the findings of Dilnot Report relating to the longer term funding of social care. A fact arising from all this demographic information on old age is that by 2060 there will be a normality of someone living for 100 years and being reliant for 60 years on the state system!
What does this mean for Care Providers like Essex Cares? Put simply a recognition that social care services will be in demand from an older population who will want greater choice and control in the services they receive and buy. It always means given the scale of demand for services in the coming decades an increased take up of services paid directly by the individual and their families with fewer people receiving state support. Therefore all care providers will need to adapt not only to the current agenda of personalisation and individual budgets but in the designing of services that are attractive to both state supported and privately funded individuals.
Essex Cares is therefore looking to understand this longer term agenda in the design and transformation of our services to meet this agenda.
Posted: Aug 23, 2011
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