Are we Missing an Opportunity in Nurse Education?

What do we know? Globally population demographics are experiencing a significant shift in pattern with an aging population that are living longer with more complex illnesses placing greater demands on health care resources. The provision of healthcare will see a shift from traditional institutional healthcare provision to community lead healthcare delivery. In the United Kingdom (UK), the population is projected to increase by 15 % or 9.7 million to74.3 million over the next 25 years. In addition, there is a changing age structure within the UK population with the number of people aged 75 and over projected to rise by 89.3%, to 9.9 million and more than 1 in 12 of the population is expected to be aged 80 or over by mid-2039 [1].