Re-placing Care in an Ageing Society
Professor Christine Milligan, Health Research
10.25 am
The proportion of older people in the population is increasing. This is reflected in rising aged dependency ratios - the implications of which figure significantly in both national and international policy agendas. Add to this declining numbers of family members willing and available to care for their ageing relatives; a projected decrease in those available to undertake paid care-work; and we are faced with a haunting spectre of future care for the frailest of our older populations. This care dilemma comes at a time when older people's expectations are also changing. In the UK, as elsewhere, care homes are increasingly seen as the 'option of last resort' hence policy and preference has progressively shifted towards 'ageing in place'. Technological advance has also seen the emergence of a range of new initiatives designed to shift the way that care for older people is provided and the places in which it occurs.
But these types of initiative also raise some important questions about what care means for older people, the forms of care they actually want and where and how this is best delivered. It also raises questions about the ways in which new technological developments designed to support care impinge on who is involved in the delivery of that care. Drawing on my research around the care of frail older people over a number of years, I will discuss these issues and their effects on older people's perceptions and experiences of care. I suggest that new forms of care provision hold potential for addressing the 'care gap'; they also raise critical questions that have yet to be resolved.
Biography
Christine Milligan is Professor of Health and Social Geography and Director of the Centre for Ageing Research in the School of Health and Medicine. Christine has published widely on the interrelationships between people, places, health and social care. More specifically, her research is concerned with the impact of ageing in place for older people, the changing nature of care and who provides that care - and where. This involves a concern with the intersections between informal (family) care-giving, voluntarism and social welfare. A second strand of her work focuses on healthy ageing and the geographical concept of the therapeutic landscape.