By Tony Watts OBE
No, nothing to do with the late Queen classic of the same name, but a serious question in the wake of a recent New Scientist survey which asked over 2,000 people if they would take up the offer of immortality if they had the chance. The answer is: just one in five of us.
The song by Queen was written for The Highlander, where the eponymous hero remained forever in rude health. But most of us rightly imagine a hugely extended lifespan like that of Bilbo in Lord of the Rings… where he felt increasingly thin and stretched
In our world, many a day’s journey from Hobbiton, the main concerns of those in the survey who felt content to live their allotted span rather than going on ad infinitum was the daunting prospect of living in a nursing home… ad nauseam.
And the trend in recent years has illustrated just that point: while we have steadily extended lifespans over the last century, our “healthspan” (years of healthy life) has not kept pace. We are spending more and more years needing care and support.
That, in turn, is causing health and social care spending to spiral… against an alarming backdrop (in real terms) of swingeing cuts in public funding. Already – according to Age UK – some 1.4 million people are not receiving the care they need because they cannot afford to pay for support that (in the past) was provided free of charge.
Where is all this leading? As someone observing and commenting from the sidelines for many years, I can only foresee the depressing prospect of increasing numbers of the older generation relying on an overstretched care system that is being starved of proper funding.
It makes it ever more critical for those of us in a position to do so to put funds aside for our care in later life. And (again if we are in a position to do so) to ensure that we can make our pensions and savings last by not overdrawing on them in the earlier years. While the latest news from ONS is that life expectancy has now stalled in the UK, it is still 82.9 for women and 79.2 for men… and there are now more male centenarians than ever before.
Of course, it may well be that all the promised benefits of gene research are realised: scientists have already discovered how to switch on and off the telomeres in DNA that tell the body to age… but only (so far) in mice. That could lead to halting – or even – reversing – the ageing process.
But in a world of over seven billion people, will we really have the room?
You can find out how long your pensions and savings will last – and what would happen if you took out more or less at any given point – with the RetireEasy LifePlan. You can also check out the impact of putting funds aside for later life care. Go to: http://www.retireeasy.co.uk
