Social Care News

Social care gap: older people could be without relatives to care for them by 2017

A report by the Institute for Public Policy Research has said that the number of older people needing care could outstrip the number of relatives able to care for them by 2017.

• The report, part of a series resulting from the IPPR's 'Condition of Britain' social policy project, says that by 2017 "the number of older people in need of care is expected to outstrip the number of family members able to provide informal care for the first time in 2017."
• The report also says that the number of people aged 65 and over without children to care for them will almost double before the end of the next decade and that by 2030 there will be more than 2 million people in England without a child to care for them if needed.
• About 230,000 of these will be in need of more than 20 hours' care a week and will have no informal support, according to the report's authors.

Personal care crisis?

The report also reveals that around 800,000 older people who need personal care are not receiving this, either because eligibility criteria has been cut back (87 per cent of councils in England are now providing care only for those with ‘substantial’ or ‘critical’ needs) or because they are unable to afford paid care.

Read more on this story:

• Read the IPPR’s Condition of Britain interim report
• The final report from the Condition of Britain project will be published in June 2014.
• Read the Guardian's coverage of this story: Numbers of elderly needing care will soon outstrip relatives able to help