Developing specialist healthcare for older people: a challenge for the European Union.

The state of health in the European Union is better than ever before. This is due to spectacular progress made over the second half of this century in terms of medical research, health services provision and living conditions. However, older people require more, and substantially different, health and care services than younger people. The central challenge of the policy makers is to ensure that future health care policies will provide an adequate and cost effective response to the changes brought about by demographic trends.