Sublime

You’d be wise to spend only about $10 of your budget on medical care and spend more on improving social and environmental factors such as substandard housing, job stress, poverty, discrimination, and dangerous neighborhoods — what experts often call the “social determinants of health.” When we think about what really shapes our health, medical care

In 2019, just 2 per cent of the adult population received long-term and short-term social care. For older people, it is higher: 7 per cent of the over-65s get social care, compared with just 1 per cent of those who are18 to 64.

In truth, although older people – defined in this book as aged 65 and over (though whether 65 is really that old any more is another matter) – are the biggest group of people who use council-funded social care, the number has been falling in recent years, despite our ageing population.