Ageing, nursing and care

Original title: Vergrijzing, verpleging en verzorging.

All the expectations are that the ageing of the Dutch population will continue over the coming years. This has consequences for the demand, use and costs of care. This applies in particular for home care and for nursing and care homes, forms of care which are widely used by older people. At the request of the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, the Netherlands Institute for Social Research/SCP carried out a study of trends in this sector up to 2030.

In this report we provide answers to questions such as: 'What will be the likely expenditure on publicly funded nursing and care in 2030?' and 'What kind of care will people receive if they can no longer access nursing or care home services?'. The report shows that the use of nursing and care is likely to continue increasing in the coming years, but not as rapidly as might be expected on the basis of population ageing. This is because older people in the future will be healthier than older people today, and also better educated. On the other hand, expenditure will increase more due to rising prices.

The modelling used in this study is described in detail in the SCP special VeVeRa-III (in Dutch), which was published simultaneously with this report.