Recommendation 5

As pensioners are generally on a fixed income, they face challenges responding to cost-of-living increases. Those on low incomes are likely to respond by cutting back on food, energy use and social interactions, adding to existing health risks. Various social and environmental risk factors such as poverty, bereavement and isolation and cold as well as lifestyle factors such as diet contribute to accelerating the ageing process, so-called frailty, reducing healthy life expectancy and the capacity to live independently. From this follows significant increased demand for health and social care services and increasingly grim health outcomes. Without a much greater focus on a whole system approach to prevention, tackling the factors that cause ill-health amongst pensioners, including poverty itself, the Government will not be able to achieve its goal of building a health and social care service that is sustainable for future generations. (Conclusion, Paragraph 41)