The fact that we’re generally living longer is what success looks like for humanity. And our collective ageing is a big feature of the 2020s, with higher longevity combining with the large baby-boomer cohort retiring to mean this decade will see a faster ageing population than any other between the 1960s and the 2060s.
But the UK’s ageing population also brings pressures for the public finances. Demographic change on its own is set to push up social security spending (mainly the state pension) on the over-60s by £22bn a year by 2030.
And ageing raises healthcare costs, especially when combined with increasing morbidity – the length of time spent in ill health. In 2015, 44% of 85- to 89-year-olds had two or more long-term conditions, up from 34% in 2006.
But it’s not just patients who are ageing; so are the doctors. Around a quarter of GPs are aged 55-plus. What will all these baby-boomer GPs retiring mean for healthcare? New research from the US examines the impact on patients aged 65 and over of their GPs retiring.
The effects are big, but not all negative. As you’d expect, losing their GP leads to less primary care (6% down over the first four years), partly offset by more use of other services (for 18 months, A&E visits are more likely).
More positively, there’s a pick-up in diagnosis of chronic conditions such as Alzheimer’s – a fresh pair of eyes and maybe more testing as you settle in with a new GP helps. The net effect, though, is higher costs for providing healthcare, especially where a GP was retiring from a solo practice, making transition to a new doctor harder. So it’s not just ageing patients pushing up health spending, retiring GPs are too.
Torsten Bell is chief executive of the Resolution Foundation. Read more at resolutionfoundation.org
