Growing older is not an option, goes the saying. And of course more and more of us are living to what my mum called a “ripe old age”.
That’s fantastic news. But what is increasingly clear is that society has been incredibly slow to gear up for the challenges as well as the opportunities that longevity brings. It’s been the “elephant in the room” for successive governments: issues with such huge implications for our public services (and public purse) that we haven’t grasped the nettle.