While there was considerable focus on living well, planners also needed to consider how to ensure people died well, Otago Community Hospice chief executive Ginny Green said.
''Often the physical needs are comparatively minor compared to someone's psychological, social and spiritual needs.
''We need to look at these people and their families as a whole.''
The hospice was not resourced to deliver all palliative care, most of which was delivered by health professionals and informal carers.
However, palliative care and training was a specialty area and, like many services in the elderly care sector, the hospice was battling to compete, given the superior wages district health boards could offer staff.
''We have been lucky enough to pretty well match hospital staff salaries, but now with this latest settlement the gap is widening and it is going to start impacting on our ability to recruit excellent staff, which is really concerning,'' Mrs Green said.
The New Zealand Funeral Directors Association has been in planning mode for the expected future demand.
President Gary Taylor said the organisation had carried out a nationwide survey three years ago which examined the expected increase in death rates across the country up to 2040.
More funeral directors would be needed, ranging from two extra in smaller regions to as many as 10-12 more in major centres, he said.
''We are prepared for it, and last year we saw more people on the funeral directors' course than usual and certainly more than usual on the embalmers' course than we have seen previously.
''One of the issues the funeral industry has is retaining those people. It's not the best-paid job in the world and it can be an anti-social job when you look at maintaining work-life balance.''
People living longer might mean they outlived their peers, but that did not mean there should not be a funeral to celebrate the life of a centenarian, Mr Taylor said.
''Funerals are very much about those who are left behind - just because Granddad was 100, that does not mean that there aren't people outside of the family whose lives he touched and who need to come and pay their respects and mark that occasion.
''The longer you live, the greater the story there is to be told.''
