Following up my last post, that demographic change and increasing demand makes radical reform of health and social care inevitable, whether politicians like it or not.
Reform, which has blazed a trail on this issue, has just published its latest report forecasting the rise of a perfect storm of rising demand fast-heading towards the NHS. Although the report doesn't tackle social care, the storm will hit that sector just as hard.
Reform's headline weather fronts are: the ageing population, economic pressures, expensive new technologies, and informed and expectant consumers. In the report they also mention obesity (see CentreRight times past). This is unsurprising on current trends and with a quarter of 11-15 year olds said to be obese.
I would throw dementia into the mix as well. This is a product of longevity. Think "20s". About 1 in 20 (5%) of people have dementia in their early to mid 60's. Twenty years on, in their early to mid 80's, about 20% (1 in 5) people have dementia. The costs are immense - about £17 billion a year according to the Alzheimers Society.
The boat went down in The Perfect Storm. The monolithic NHS is so closed and inflexible that it is bound to do the same.
We need politicians who will work with urgency on a new design, and explain to the electorate why it's needed. Although far from perfect, our current social care framework provides some clues about what the blueprint might look like : it is provided through local authorities (which can be reformed to allow genuine local accountability); it is introducing individually-controlled budgets (next stop: vouchers); it allows co-payments and multiple providers; much informal care is provided by families and in the community (voluntary sector revival).
Update: see here for a Platform piece by Reform - I hadn't spotted this when I posted.
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