Massive increase in UK care home places needed by 2025, report finds

The reasons for this increase was found to be the length of time that both men and women are expected to live for whilst needing extensive support. The results of the study found that, on average, men were living for 2.4 years needing support whilst women lived for three.

Both of these figures average out at a doubling of time where people needed full-time care, as, in the period of 1991 to 2011, men needed further 1.3 years of care and women needed an increased 1.4 years of care in this two decade period.

The increase was closely related to the increasing life expectancy for adults in the UK and, as this trend continues, there will further burdens placed on the working population to support the older population.

Researchers predict that by 2025 there will be a further 350,000 people who high care needs living in the UK. Some of these will be looked after by relatives but, at a minimum, the study found that 71,000 care home places, or a third of that total, would need to be arranged.

Professor Carol Jagger, from Newcastle University’s Institute for Ageing, led the study and commented: "Our findings have considerable implications for relatives as older people will have complex needs, requiring sustained input from family carers or social care teams to support independent living. Meanwhile, Age UK projections to 2021 of the service costs to maintain the current level of social care in England suggest an additional £940m will be required, assuming a constant health profile of the older population."

As mentioned by Jagger, there is a huge financial hole to be addressed looking forward into the future. This is of further concern when local authorities have already suggest that there will be a £2.3 billion funding gap by 2020 to maintain social services.

Beyond simply plugging the financial gap, there is also the need for trained individuals to be ready to meet the increasing needs in social care. This is a particular problem as there has already been reported that staffing levels for care workers are falling.