To think that people living longer is making quality of life for everyone worse?

yabu.

As awful as it is for us all individually to lose somebody that we love….. is curing every disease, and having us all live to 100 really a good thing if it is at the expense of quality of life for the rest of society?

living to 100! apart from some pampered royals, this is not the age people conk out round about where I live. It's not only the old but also the disabled who are probably a drain in your view? What do you suggest? rounding up people who need care and get the bazooka out so you can do to your library?

Social care needs proper funding. It's possible, just not with the current model and undoubtedly successive governments did nothing. It's an appalling and disgusting post. You don't have access to the library because John next door needs a carer. Educate yourself!

Pathetic argument.

The problem is that successive governments have failed to invest in social care and the NHS and created a society based on greed and rampant capitalism so people only value is as cheap and easily fired workforce while everyone else is seen as a 'burden'.

Who else do you want to target? the disabled, the sick, single mums, immigrants...should they all be 'eliminated'?

You should apply to join the Tory policy team. You would fit right in.

Somehow there is always plenty of tax payer money to fund mad schemes like Rwanda deportations, Covid contracts for mates, MPs expenses and pay rises but not for social or health care...

The sooner we start prioritising a decent standard of living for people of all ages and stop creating a society that only benefits a few greedy leeches at the top the better we all will be.

👏👏👏 Well said.

I think the issue is a whole societal issue.

People are sick for longer and earlier..we keep raising the retirement age, we aren't treating people in a timely manner with NHS waitlist which generally mean conditions are worse by the time they can get treatment, which impacts every age group, social care and working population. You cant go to a GP anymore you have to wait weeks.

Every family is usually dual income now, with grandparents working later aswell, there is no familial support so that again is increased pressure on social care.

With all the benefit bashing, government scrutinising claiments i doubt anyone is going to stop working to be a carer for family members in the forseeable if they don't have to.

No group, or service is the sole problem.

Oh dear, I always think of Logan's Run when someone raises this, where everyone is compulsorily euthanised at 30 to maintain a balanced between population and resources. It is a nightmare scenario.

My grandmother lived until she was 94. In her younger days she was of the mindset that she wouldn’t want to live well into old age. That viewpoint changed as she got older and nearer the end of her life and every day became precious because it could be her last. I find the viewpoint that the elderly should be expendable at will really offensive.

I’ve worked in the field of ageing. Both chins and Japan are struggling massively

Japan is betting on technology but research shows the much vaunted robots don’t work because the older ppl don’t really engage with them and they go wrong a lot. Basically once the initial novelty wears off they’re in cupboards and China brought in a law saying adult children had to care for parents (didn’t work) and have built huge warehouse style care homes 800-1000 beds for older pol

they have no more idea than we do

plus of course in the uk 20% of ppl over 50 have no adult children at all. Tje demand on care will only increase

I’m a community nurse and the vast majority of our patients are elderly. I’m definitely not against voluntary euthanasia especially for the terminally ill or those who have a debilitating untreatable illness as long as they have capacity and it’s their choice.
But stopping treatment for the elderly is very complicated and an ethical dilemma for the medical profession. When do we stop? Age cannot be the deciding factor because I can show you a very unfit 70 year old and a 87 year old still walking his dog for an hour every day or a 94 year old attending aquafit twice a week! The last two are on medication one on a considerable number of tablets but he is still active. Do we have a quality of live test (I believe vets do the same thing) score less than 10 out of 30 we stop treatment? WHO administers these tests? Not someone with any financial advantage (local or national government employees). What if the person doesn’t want treatment stopped? Or the family doesn’t want the treatment stopped. IME many families want their elderly relatives treated and many elderly who have capacity carry on swallowing their tablets for their various health conditions. Stopping medication doesn’t mean that person will die in the next few weeks, for example those taking treatment for Parkinson’s would yes decline faster and but could still live a considerable period just have an even poorer quality of life, ditto stopping anti hypertensives/anti coagulants could cause some to have a heart attack or stroke but they may not die but could become even more dependent.
And who decides to stop treatment you’re asking HCPs to play God that is not a role I believe we want.
I see many lonely elderly who get the minimum level of care because this is all they or the council can afford, who could have a better quality of life if the money was available, we need more day centres carers with more time, community support and infra structure to enable the elderly to live fulfilled lives. As a society we seem to value are elderly less and less, so many people spend a fortune on Botox/surgery/fillers trying to postpone the inevitable, getting old being old is so undesirable. But we forget they too we young like you with hopes and dreams the majority have paid taxes all their lives worked their nuts off and most never complained now they are unwanted and viewed as a burden on our society.
There is so much truth in the quote:
“Our society must make it right and possible for old people not to fear the young or be deserted by them, for the test of a civilization is the way that it cares for its helpless members.”
And
“The ultimate moral test of any government is the way it treats three groups of its citizens. First, those in the dawn of life — our children. Second, those in the shadows of life — our needy, our sick, our handicapped. Third, those in the twilight of life — our elderly.”
Neither were written in the 21st century so this is not a new problem and I believe Trollop wrote a book about this.

Agree. Living longer but in poor health so costing more to maintain.

Adult social care is in budget in our local authority it’s childrens services that is causing the issue as it has had huge increases in children in care

It's absolutely shocking - and neatly demonstrates the actual cause of the problem - that people are pontificating over how we can rob Peter to pay Paul and which vulnerable groups should not be "artificially kept alive" (which, by the way, is what we do every time we use medical treatment to save a life), instead of pondering over how we can redistribute the vast, vast wealth that exists on the planet in order to meet everyone's needs.

There is no reason why anyone should not have their care, medical or social needs met in a world with such immense wealth. Part of the problem is the unbridled greed and selfishness of the very few, globally, at the top. The other part of the problem is everyone else ignoring them and pointing the finger downwards.

We should look at China and Japan, who have the most elderly population. See how they fund it and manage. I think having an elderly and healthy population, is very different to an elderly and diseased one. My father is in his 80s, he has so many things wrong with him. His quality of life is very poor. No wonder he keeps talking about stepping off this mortal plane. My neighbour's mother is 102! Her quality of life is poor, she's struggling. Being given life saving treatment and medication isn't the way forward, if they are physically unhealthy. It's just patching them up for the next time.

So if all of these advances in medicine are causing so many problems in society why are we bothering with the research ? Why look for a cure for cancer ? Why develop vaccines ? If we’re debating where to ‘draw the line’ do we take into account people’s ability to pay ? There’s always been one rule for the rich and one for the poor, so if we’re not even handed, could it be that eventually only the rich will survive ? Problem solved, but probably not in the way we wanted.

I agree. But many will wring their hands at this viewpoint.

Surely there are more and more people needing physical and/or mental health support, across all age groups?

We are constantly reading of children/young people unable to function properly, go to school/work, because there is such a demand on services.

We can’t leave them all to it.🤷‍♀️

Many older people are funding their own care, if they have savings/assets.

I actually support the Assisted Dying proposals, because I think everyone should have a choice - but it should never be about money.

Well the statement isn’t incorrect but the hard part is what do you do next?

People are living longer now due to medical advances etc

They are not. In fact we got now this quality of life because they worked their arse in their working life.
Taking money from libraries etc to put it in to care, is like having a bad cough and put a plaster on your pinky to solve it, useless.

During Covid anyone that didn't go to all lengths to save these people was called a murderer.

I would seriously consider putting in an advance directive that I didn’t want any treatment of that kind If I had dementia.

I’ve done it. And refuse the pneumonic vaccination because it confers life time immunity.

Improvements in medical care, for people of all ages, have led to us expecting more amd more. Alas, even without the tories stripping the NHS, it's not sustainable long term.
At one end of the scale we have more and premature babies surviving and at the other end of the scale we have people living into their nineties or even hundreds, and then there are always new (and often expensive) therapies for a whole host of condition - who decides if one group is less deserving?

The funds are there. The will isn't. It is a matter of priorities.

Totally agree. My FIL nearly died of pneumonia, instead he was treated aggressively in ICU and his vascular dementia took a massive step and he will in all likelihood die of dementia and Alzheimers as he has both. Slowly and with little quality. It would have been kinder not to treat so agreesively. But per my post earlier no discussions had ever been had with him so saving his physical life was all the hospital could do.

It’s a very complicated and emotive subject. But actually important to raise and discuss as it’s certainly the case that people are living longer artificially as the advances in medicine have been incredible.

Spending time in a dementia home with late stage sufferers (all of whom pay for their own care) shows zero “quality of life” by my definition.

I can’t find another word to describe it than cruel and whilst families may think people want to be kept alive at any cost I doubt any sufferer would agree.

It’s time for the laws in this country to be updated to allow medically assisted dying whilst people have the cognitive function to be able to make that choice.

We recently had a scenario where a lot of people could have been offed but there was a massive outcry about it especially on here, I wonder if it's the same people that now don't want to pay for these people to live.

You may not realise it, but your line of thinking is very sinister. Like, eugenics - level sinister. Best that we don't even go down that cognitive road. It's never ended well.