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The State of Health and Care of Older People in England 2025

Published on 30 September 2025 02:02 PM

CRISIS POINT: Why Healthy Life Expectancy is Falling in England

England is ageing rapidly, but the promise of a healthier, longer life is rapidly fading.

The tenth annual edition of Age UK’s flagship report, The State of Health and Care of Older People in England 2025 as authored by Chloe Reeves, Dr Aisha Islam, and Tom Gentry, has been released. In short it highlights a massive staffing crunch and the fact that lifespans are now in decline.

The Dual Crisis: Inequality and Underinvestment

This decline is not felt equally. Our analysis reveals massive inequalities rooted in income and geography. Advantaged older people are often ageing well, while their less fortunate peers struggle.

The system designed to support this growing population is in critical distress due to more than a decade of State underinvestment in the NHS and social care, combined with a profound lack of workforce planning. The result is key deficits: we haven’t got enough GPs, hospital beds, or social care professionals.

The Human Cost of System Strain

For the millions of people who need support, access is often delayed, or sometimes impossible.

  • In 2023/24, local authorities received 1.4 million new requests for support from older people. Yet, more than half of those who need care cannot access it speedily, or sometimes, at all.
  • The failure of state-funded systems is intensifying the burdens on unpaid partners, family, and friends. Around 1.8 million people aged 65+ in England are unpaid carers, and for the third year running, Directors of Adult Social Services rank burnout as the number one factor contributing to carer breakdown.
  • Our hospitals are stretched thin. The likelihood of experiencing a long stay in A&E increases with age, leading to patients, especially those aged 90 and above, facing 12-hour waits or more. The number of people experiencing ‘corridor care’ (waiting 12 hours or more from the decision to admit to admission) has reached 532,451 in 2024/25—a 525-fold increase in a decade.

Escaping the Doom Loop

We must escape this ‘doom loop’ of declining health and increasing system failure by shifting the emphasis in healthcare ‘from hospital to home’ through a Neighbourhood Health Service.

We offer key recommendations for policymakers to address this strategic failure, including:

  • Making older people an explicit priority for the Neighbourhood Health Service.
  • Guaranteeing that all older people diagnosed with severe frailty receive minimum preventative measures, such as a structured medication review and falls risk assessment.
  • Developing a funded strategy to support unpaid carers and improve the proportion of those able to take a break.

Read the full report now to understand the scope of the crisis and the urgent action required to ensure older people receive the joined-up help they need.

Download The State of Health and Care of Older People in England 2025 below.