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

OP, is not the elderly, the younger, the middle age. Is the system it self. During the last millennium the system had changed, we don't have the same values and standards that 100 years ago. Neither them the same as 300 years ago.
Under a humanist perspective of your question the answer is not them. Is all of us, we need to modify the system. Is called progress, evolution.
Societies evolved, past records shown us for a better human living. Whether we make the next changes towards a better or worst is up to us.

Blaming a collective of the society miseries never ends well. Take a look to the history.

Focus in old people, young people, whatever people, only show us that the trees don't let us see the forest.
Old people worth every penny, same as the rest of us.

@Againname In reference to your last paragraph, from OP's view, I can only say we need those people in their 50's and 60's to work and pay taxes. Also getting seriously ill in their 50s and 60s would mean we still have to spend money treating them. So that won't do. They have to keep healthy and work. Once they can't work or pay taxes anymore, time to stop healthcare. God forbid they should enjoy a few work free years, albeit with declining health. Be fit for work, or go. Reminds me of a dark period of history.

Up to my neck in my own adjacent shitstorm but keeping an eye on the thread while I smoke myself to death in the hope of release (only partly joking....)

Anyway just wanted to thoroughly commend @Againname and a few others who are so patiently explaining things from a humanitarian point of view that is important for everyone in the long run.

Keep it up. I'll be weighing in at some point, when I've finished packing to move and figured out what the hell is going to happen to my Dad, as on Tuesday the nice man at the council said he wouldn't be left homeless but the deadline is Monday, they're shut over the weekend and we've heard absolutely nothing. Yes, we're chasing. And waiting. And waiting.

Great way to treat an 84 year old nuclear test veteran battered by his mentally ill wife on an urgent two week cancer referral because of dramatically declining health over a 5 month period that will cost more to sort out now than if a GP had been a bit more pro-active earlier on. Or just given him, you know an appointment. Or considered that the lymphoma in remission might have come back - they're still dithering about exploring that. The weightloss and blood in poo is probably just age related wear and tear apparently 🙄

Are they hoping he'll just die quietly,? He's beginning to wonder - and so am I.

Am I being unreasonable to say that the advancements in medicine and healthcare have led to a decline in living standards for our society?

Yes YABU.

I replied earlier in the thread explaining the reasons for the decline in living standards (financial, social, and moral) in society. All three are interlinked btw.

Simply put, the decline in quality of life is due to false economy policies (and actually eugenics lite thinking).

Investment pays off.

Good & well funded public services including the NHS and social care (for all ages, child, working age disabled adults, the elderly).

Health and social care, for example. Long wait lists and underfunded social care mean people end up needing more (and more costly) help later on.

Council housing (the unaffordable housing issues affect health, again meaning higher demand on health and social care).

Better child support system

Supportive benefits system (poverty and stress affect health, yet again meaning more need for health and social care).

Work, education and training opportunities

Early and effective access to public services for everyone in need of help improves standard of living for everyone.

Finally you'll be reassured (I assume?) to know that, as far as I'm aware, life expectancy is no longer rising.

@Futurascope My turn to ask a question. If you think (wrongly imo) that people are 'living too long', do you think we should end healthy living laws and campaigns? Eat less healthily, drink up, smoke, don't bother exercising. Then lots of people will die of massive heart attacks in their 50s, 60s, or 70s. That would solve the 'problem' of an ageing population'.

Well I wonder if that person wouldn't be considered for a hip op anyway? If they have carers that suggests poor health, and so less likely to benefit or even survive such an operation.

Thing is, not doing the hip op might have actually cost the public purse more because she might have then needed care workers looking after her. I suppose being brutal, you could say we will only do hip ops on poor 90 year olds, ones whose care would be publicity funded, if you are self care funding, no new hip for you because you won't cost the public as much.

I don’t understand why people are objecting to treatment which keeps elderly people active and independent for longer.
Treatments that prolong life that is already painful and unhappy, yes I see that is an issue. But withholding treatment that would get a recently active person back to independence again would be a false economy no matter what their age. £20k might sound like a lot for a new hip but without it more than that amount can easily be swallowed up by carers.

Well she didn't. And neither does my 87 year old nan. Her daughter, who still lives alone and has my dc for tea twice a week

Well chances are most 90 year olds will be needed carers anyway. Maybe not your nan but most.

That isn't my nans fault is it.

They can only last 15 to 20 years before revision anyway, and it gave her another almost 9 years of mobility.

But instead people who have chosen for her to be bed bound and in pain. Where does the money come from for the carers?

the number of economically inactive people in an economy starts exceeding those who are working and paying for them, that is a major problem unless you have a magic money tree.

Slight problem here.
There's 916,000 total job vacancies in the UK, but over 1 million people on non seekers benefits. That's not even including other 'economically inactive' groups (the retired, the disabled, students, children).

There's not enough jobs for everyone.
They're all economically active though. First, everyone pays tax, and secondly everyone buys food and other goods (keeping businesses afloat and people in employment), and groups who need public service including schools, the NHS, and social care are responsible for keeping loads of people in employment.

With a deficit of jobs to the number of jobseekers, denying support to the 'drain on resources' groups would mean a hell of a lot more 'economically inactive' people because it would mean much higher unemployment.

Reducing human beings to only their 'economic worth' also ignores that value isn't only financial, and that financial contribution isn't only direct.

Everyone is a member of the community, and contributions in a civilised society aren't only financial, but anyway as I said everyone contributes financially whether through actively working themselves or by being responsible for the employment of others.

I agree but lots will be outraged. The cost of such operations is almost 20k. There is only so much money in the pot and decisions have to be made as to how it is allocated.

Good thing you’re not in charge of budgets then. Hip replacement isn’t a major op, incidentally - it’s not even done under general anaesthetic.

Honestly, that's disgusting.

"See my previous post. My great nan had a hip at 90 and died at 98, 2 weeks before her 99th birthday. Should she have just been left?"

Honestly. If I was in charge of budgets, no I wouldn't have signed off on a hip replacement for a 90 year old. That's the truth. I'd have absolutely signed off on painkillers or whatever meds would have made her remaining time more comfortable. But a major op? No.
But it's irrelevant really. Because she got one and it apparently went well. So good for her.

Oh and these questions are going to become much more pressing in future due to huge falls in birth rates. There simply won't be enough people to provide care.

I agree. It is already rationed. So far, or at least I'd like to think, its rationed on 'most benefit' grounds, rather than financial cost (obviously a factor as well). Example being organ transplantation. You have a 20 year old and an 85 year old both needing a kidney, both in otherwise good health, who do you give it to? If both my 85 year old mother and eleven year old daughter were drowning and I could only save one, it's a complete no brainer to me who I'd save. Even if it wasn't my own daughter and some random eleven year old, I still think saving their life is more important than the 85 year old.
Another example, the NHS recently approved for use a drug that cost £3 million. Only approved for babies. If this drug could cure and reverse dementia, do you think we should pay that for every elderly dementia patient? I don't.

It is complete head in the sand to think we shouldn't ask such questions or to ask them is equivalent to killing elderly people. And if you think the world and the country doesn't value the elderly, have you been asleep for the last five years? Covid largely affected the elderly, and virtually the whole world shut down, at massive financial and emotional cost to the rest of us, to protect our elderly.

Am I being unreasonable to say that the advancements in medicine and healthcare have led to a decline in living standards for our society?

Yes. Because it's patently untrue and simplistic.

You'd refuse a replacement joint at 75+ if you fell and injured yourself but were otherwise OK?

Healthcare is already rationed, that's reality. It just isn't done very honestly. I definitely won't change my mind. I don't understand the attachment to existing at all costs.

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER, there is absolutely nothing wrong in wanting to end your life in dignity when you decide it. DECIDE it being the key word.

No one should be deciding matters of life or death purely based on age when as the saying goes, age is only a number.

See my previous post. My great nan had a hip at 90 and died at 98, 2 weeks before her 99th birthday. Should she have just been left?

@vivainsomnia , well, I’m already pretty ancient and have an absolute horror of getting so decrepit that I can’t manage my own personal hygiene and need help with ‘toileting’ as they like to call it. Plus I have seen both my MiL and FiL descend into the most pitiful states, thanks to dementia - which my DM had for around 15 years until she finally died at 97.

I have already had a very good life and would be entirely happy to pop off before any of that happens. Above all I would hate to turn into one of those monumentally selfish old people who expect their family to give up their lives to run around after them. Sadly I have known people who became like this, even though nobody would previously have imagined that they would.

And I absolutely hate the thought of whatever we hope to leave to dds and Gdcs, to make their lives easier, going in care home fees.

Hence my wishes about life-saving or life-prolonging treatments, in the event that I can no longer speak with full mental capacity for myself, made abundantly clear in my Health and Welfare Power of Attorney.

@Kendodd I don't have an opinion, other than that I am glad there are expert medicos (who are compassionate, I hope) who make medical judgements.

I was simply following the OP's logic, by applying an arbitrary set of criteria to the question of whether human beings should receive treatment and care. I used the OP's own words.

To be really clear, I think the OP's 'logic' and her question are both pretty inhuman. And extremely self-centred.

I hope the OP is not a medico.