themj.co.uk From our bloggers

摘要

Paul Corrigan on health matters Governments - all governments - produce hundreds of reports every year. This is partly because they all set up hundreds of re­views that all - at one time or another - have to report their findings. So, it's tempting to see the Dilnot report as just another report from just another review. This would be a mistake. The reality of an ageing society is now all around us and will create more and more stresses on our social and economic reality. From previous posts on this blog and from the NHS itself, we already know that long term conditions will in the future cost the NHS an increasing amount of resource every year, primarily because of the ever-increasing number of people who live to be older than 85. We know that this increase in de­mand for healthcare from much older people is going to force the NHS to radically change the way in which the whole service delivers health care for people with long term conditions. The same will be true for changes in pensions. People living much longer changes the dynamics of the relationship between what we need to pay for our pension and the period of time over which we will be drawing it. The same is true for the costs of elderly social care. But, in many ways, this dynamic is different for the older person. For pensions, and the NHS, the risk of extra cost lies with the state. We don't really know what this will cost for the nation and we all need to do something different for that future.