The state pension in the UK, at GBP77.45 per week, represents a much smaller proportion of average earnings than the pension in many other European countries.

Elderly people in the UK are eligible for free medical care, including in-patient hospital care, and are exempt from prescription charges. They are, however, required to pay for dentistry and optical care, including the cost of spectacles.

They benefit from concessionary charges for a range of services including public transport, entry to leisure facilities, theatres and cinemas etc.

The market for long term care in the UK is not well developed, although there is a substantial private nursing sector. In other developed countries, particularly the Scandinavian countries, long term care is much more widely available, and services are mostly publicly owned and operated. The Swedish system is wholly tax-financed, while in other countries such as Germany and Japan, long term care for the elderly is financed from compulsory insurance schemes. The UK is similar to the US in that payment for long term care is means tested, taking into account income, savings and assets. In practice, this means that many senior citizens have to pay for their own long term care. In the UK, unlike the US, their residential home is taken into account as an asset in the means test.