At the highest level, this analysis shows that England’s health and care services continue to be under enormous pressure and, despite the best efforts of dedicated staff, unable to meet the needs of all the older people requiring treatment, care and support. The trend towards this was already firmly in place before the pandemic; it was greatly exacerbated during those traumatic two-plus years; there has been a creditable degree of recovery since then in some areas of provision; but in others it has not yet proved possible to arrest the decline in capacity, service availability and performance, with extremely worrying implications for older people and their families and communities.
