Challenges of an Ageing Population
- Growing Demand for Care Services: The UK’s ageing population, with a predicted 36% increase in citizens aged 85+ between 2015-2025, presents significant challenges, including a surge in demand for care home services nationwide. This strain may lead to insufficient care availability and potential neglect of individuals with specialized needs like dementia.
- Staffing Shortages and High Turnover: Existing facilities face pressure due to staffing challenges, including shortages and high turnover rates, with reports indicating 42% of staff leaving care homes within 12 months of joining. Budget cuts in social funding exacerbate this issue, hindering local authorities’ ability to meet care demands.
- Social and Economic Concerns: Age UK’s report highlights various challenges, including improper care leading to hospital readmissions among the elderly, poverty, and inadequate housing. As the demand for care homes exceeds availability, there’s a pressing need for intelligent design and refurbishment to address the ageing population’s evolving needs and ensure quality care provision.
The UK’s ageing population is growing year by year. A 36% growth in citizens aged 85+ is predicted between 2015 – 2025, as reported by the Office for National Statistics – this translates as a rise of 1.5 million to 2 million people in the ageing population. This trend is accompanied by its own challenges and difficulties, including a notable increase in demand for care home services across the country.
What Are The Challenges Of An Aging Population?
As a nation, we are approaching a situation of insufficient care available for the elderly population. This may also have a domino effect and result in lack of support for those with specialist issues, such as dementia, which is becoming a more frequent health problem as people live longer.
Strain will therefore be put on existing facilities and services to cope with the increasing pressure, which could lead to less-than-acceptable practices in the industry. Issues surrounding flexibility of staff has lead to staffing shortages and high staff turnover in care homes, with reports of 42% of staff leaving within 12 months of joining (Centre for Policy on Ageing and Bupa 2012).
Local authorities are responsible for the provision of care in their assigned areas. This situation has only been exacerbated by budget cuts in social funding which may be preventing local authorities from meeting demands for care provision.
A special report called Age UK’s Agenda for Later Life was released in 2013, and it outlines some of the key challenges faced by the ageing population. Among some of Age UK’s findings included: over 200,000 people over the age of 75 were readmitted to hospital, indicating they had received improper care to start with, or had been released from hospital too early. Poverty amongst the older generation was also identified a big issue, with over a million pensioners living below the poverty line or in below adequate housing.
Will An Increased Aging Population Cause More Demand For Care Homes
Quite simply, the demand for care homes is beginning to exceed the number of homes available. Experienced care home construction consultancies, such as Aedifice, will find their services sought more often to meet the projected demand for care homes. Intelligent and perceptive care home design and refurbishment is therefore vital for creating environments that cater for this growth in the ageing population and their specialist needs.
Aedifice Partnership is a leading consultancy and project management firm specializing in delivering high-quality projects across various sectors, including care homes, residential properties, education establishments, and commercial properties.
Our range of services includes project management, chartered building surveys, CDM and quantity surveying among others.
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