Background: This contribution aims to provide an overview of the main trends and phenomena contributing to the association between social exclusion and (health, social and long-term) care service use among older Europeans.

Methods: Data comes from measures on health, social and long-term care service usage, and related outcome indicators, from within a series of quantitative cross-European survey studies and from secondary data sources.

Results: Findings show that the lack of crucial services – such as transportation, primary health care services, or banking services – might represent a risk of exclusion in older age, this being true for instance in countries with large rural communities (e.g. Ireland, Poland, Lithuania, but also Norway). Nordic countries, such as the Netherlands, Iceland, Norway and Denmark, reveal to be particularly advanced in terms of home care provision. In this regard, data seem to suggest that the availability of formal care services and that of informal care are positively correlated, thus suggesting the existence of acrowding-in effect. The access to web-based services represents an additional field in which new and old exclusion risks might accumulate, as highlighted by the lack of such services in Southern and Eastern European countries.

Conclusions: Limitations in accessing services which are necessary in everyday life can heavily affect older people’s ability to remain independent and active, and thereby contribute to experiences of exclusion. The illustrated data show the critical areas in which policy should focus on to tackle current challenges that service exclusion poses for older people across Europe.