Concerns over ageing population

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Tuesday, 24 November 2020 08:03

By Carmelo Garcia - Local Democracy Reporter

County councillors have warned of the dangers that Herefordshire could face to provide care to the elderly if the average age of the population continues to rise.

Herefordshire Council expect that more than 30% of people in Herefordshire could be older than 65-years-old by 2028 if population trends continue as they are.

And councillors are concerned about the impact this would have on the county’s ability to care for older residents.

“There may be some work for this committee to do to ensure that resilience is maintained in the care home market,” coun Alan Seldon told today’s adult and wellbeing scrutiny committee.

“The numbers of people we are expecting to reach 65 in the next few years is quite frightening.

“Whether or not we will continue to have the capacity to deal with that going forward is perhaps something we as a committee should look at in the future.”

Herefordshire Council’s head of care commissioning Laura Tyler said the resilience among the care homes and how they support them in future is a big focus of their work.

Paul Smith, all ages commissioning assistant director, said more needed to be done to attract younger families to the county.

“As well as an aging population in Herefordshire we have an aging workforce which is a double whammy really.

“As a county, most strategically we need to absolutely begin to attract and recruit young families.

“Get people who go to college and further education to stay in Herefordshire and not migrate to other counties and other cities.

“We need to ensure that strategically the average age of the population in Herefordshire does need to reduce.

“It’s a simple fact that in order to maintain the workforce in Herefordshire we need to have a less aging population because we could reach the situation where there is no workforce and there’s lots of people that need supporting.”