We’re delighted to announce funding for a major new grant – Connecting Pensions, Health and Care – which will explore how the UK can take a new approach in tackling the challenges of an ageing society.
The Nuffield Foundation has awarded almost £1m to Dr Olena Nizalova and colleagues at the University of Kent. Over the lifecycle of the grant, the team will review the connections between three complex components of support for older people – pensions, health and social care – and set out proposals to create a holistic, more integrated system. The research will also be investigating public attitudes to the current systems and preferences for change.
Supporting older adults and intergenerational fairness
With the proportion of the UK population aged 65 and over now approaching 20%, the team’s research is more relevant than ever before. Older people, and their families, rely on these systems to provide support and enable a good quality of life. How these services are able to deliver in a joined-up, effective and affordable way – particularly given the demographic challenges of a falling birth rate and dispersed families – will be integral in supporting the well-being of many of our older, vulnerable adults.
The project reflects the Foundation’s long-standing commitment to research into ensuring people live well and with dignity in later life, as well as our interest in intergenerational fairness, social care, work and retirement.
Nuffield Foundation Chief Executive Tim Gardam comments:
“At a time of increasing social and economic turbulence, our funding aims to support original and challenging ideas and uses of data that have the ambition to anticipate and address the significant themes that will shape the UK public policy agenda over the next decade and beyond. The Nuffield Foundation has always been concerned with the needs and condition of our ageing population, dating from our first published report. Old People in 1947 by Seebohm Rowntree. Sixty-five years later, Professor Nizalova explores the highly complex and intertwined relationship between pensions, health and social care.”Tim Gardam, CEO of the Nuffield Foundation
Dr Nizalova explains why this research is needed:
Although governments constantly look for better policy solutions for each of the three old-age support systems, their efforts are often disjointed. As a result, the solutions for one system may jeopardise the affordability of the other two. For example, an increase in the pension age may improve the sustainability of the pension system but create challenges to the long-term care system by reducing the pool of informal carers and, thus, putting pressure on the healthcare system because of unmet care needs.”Dr Olena Nizalova, Principal Investigator for the Connecting Pensions, Health and Care project
Welfare Programme Head Alex Beer manages the grant.
