When assessing healthcare, it is important to look at some some of the key issues you could be faced with.

Health service usage increases with advancing age: a third of people over the age of 75 take four or more prescribed medications and nearly half of all people aged 85 and over receive district nursing services.

Below we list some of the key issues older people face when accessing healthcare.

Problems with hospital care. The quality of care that older people receive in hospital is variable - while some wards are excellent, many are not of a sufficiently high standard. Older people can experience problems with almost any aspect of their stay in hospital, from delays in admission through to poorly planned discharge from hospital. The main problems raised by older people and their relatives include:

There is often a lack of help with eating and drinking.

Negative attitudes towards older people persist, from rude and abrupt behaviour to downright neglect.

There can be little understanding of the needs of particularly vulnerable older people, such as those with dementia or those from ethnic minorities.

Older people often feel that decisions are taken about their care or treatment without their full involvement.

Insufficient services for people in care homes. There is evidence that older people in care homes have poor access to community health services, including GPs, and that services available tend to be of a lower quality.

Under-use of health checks. Early treatment of conditions is essential to maintain older people's health and independence, but GPs often under use the over-75 health check or other preventative measures. Of those people subsequently found to have dementia, 17 per cent were originally thought by GPs to be suffering from 'old age'.