Future of an Ageing Population

transfer of care into the community may reduce people’s reliance on hospitals,
nursing homes and other high-cost services. This does, however, shift more
responsibility to families and communities. In other countries, advanced care
planning has provided cost savings for long-term care service providers, care
of dementia sufferers living in the communities, and in other areas that have
high end of life care spending 174 .
Men
65+
Unemployed
(Semi-)routine
Intermediate
Higher professional
45-64
Unemployed
(Semi-)routine
Intermediate
Higher professional
16-44
Unemployed
(Semi-)routine
Intermediate
Higher professional
Women
60 50 40 30 20 10 0 0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Percentage of people (%) Percentage of people (%)
Survey of 13,100 people aged 16+
Figure 6.4: Percentage of the UK population with limiting long-term illness by age and
socio-economic classification of household reference person, 2011 175 .
Interventions throughout the life course reduce the time spent in ill-health.
Behaviours including not smoking, moderate alcohol consumption, good
nutrition, and physical activity have a positive effect on health in later life, but
while reductions have been observed in smoking and alcohol consumption,
there is an increase in physical inactivity in the UK. There is a strong association
between these behaviours, socio-economic status and health in later life. In
those aged 65 and over lower socio-economic status is associated with more
physical, psychological, cognitive and overall frailty 176 (see Figure 6.4). Some
evidence suggests that reducing smoking and obesity have a more significant
impact on HLE than LE, affecting the proportion of life spent in ill-health 11 ,
although there is an overall lack of evidence of how lifestyle impacts on HLE 11 .
Although the health of younger people tends to be less strongly affected by
their behaviour, occupation or wealth, unhealthy behaviours in youth and early
adulthood significantly determine a person’s health in later life 163 . The health
of older people can be affected by policies that promote health throughout
their lifetime. Interventions in many areas can improve the health of future
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