Long‐term Care in Central and South‐Eastern Europe: Challenges and Perspectives in Addressing a ‘New’ Social Risk

Abstract

Long-term care in Central and South-Eastern Europe (CSEE) has to date been largely neglected in the social policy literature. This article provides an examination of the context and the sources of reform of long-term care in CSEE, particularly Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia. It focuses on studying developments in the light of the major principles underlying the transition process and discussing key features of current developments in terms of their potential for establishing a new paradigm in long-term care policies. The article argues that the realization of more comprehensive long-term care systems has been largely hindered by a failure of governments to set priorities in this sector, by the limitations civil society finds in bringing the issue into a broader public debate and by fears that new welfare schemes will substantially extend public expenditure obligations. The findings show that -similar to the situation in most other European countries -long-term care is a latecomer in welfare state development in CSEE. But ageing societies, growing care needs and broader socio-economic developments will also increasingly challenge traditional ways of organizing long-term care and create pressure to find new welfare approaches.

Mapping support policies for informal carers across the European Union

“…For instance, the introduction of a regulated cash-for-care scheme in 1997 in France has resulted in the externalisation of the time-consuming tasks -mostly those related to personal care -to professional carers, while informal carers take on the role of care-coordinator [38,39]. On the other hand, in Italy, a less regulated attendance allowance has fostered the development of a broad unregulated care sector, employing between 650,000 and 800,000 immigrant care workers [40][41][42]. It should also be noted that direct and indirect financial support for informal carers constitute important cost-containment measures within the broader LTC financing system [43].…”

Development and Difficulties of the Eldercare System in Croatia

“…Morel, 2007;Österle, 2010;Bettio i Verashchagina, 2012). Stoga se zemlje razlikuju po načinu organiziranja i pružanja skrbi starijima (Rostgaard, Timonen i Glendinning, 2012) te pribjegavaju raznim rješenjima odgovarajući na sve veći deficit skrbi, koja su odraz specifičnoga javnopolitičkog konteksta te institucionalnog uređenja na području politika skrbi za starije.…”

“…Österle, 2010;Bettio i Verashchagina, 2012). Stoga nedostaje i sustavnih analiza reformi u Hrvatskoj, koja s europskim zemljama dijeli slične izazove.…”

Evaluation of a pilot study to introduce outcome based home care in the Czech Republic

“…Currently about 7% of the elderly population is using home care under health care insurance [8]. The elderly population is projected to dramatically increase to over 30% over the next 30 years [9] with a trend moving away from intergenerational cohabitation, an increase in employment levels particularly among women and stricter links between regular employment and social security [10], all of which challenge traditional modes of caregiving. Effective and efficient home health care is therefore crucial for sustainable health and social care in the near future, however it is still far from being possible to refer to a common set of assessment information at the national level.…”