Act on care services for the elderly to ensure high standard of quality nationwide
The Act on Care Services for Older People (full name: Act on Supporting the Functional Capacity of the Ageing Population and on Social and Health Care Services for Older People) enters into force in July 2013. The purpose of the Act is to ensure that older people will obtain individual care services and caring according to their needs on an equal basis throughout the country by means of quality social and health care services.
Home services take precedence, spouses to be offered cohabitation in long-term care
The Act gives precedence to services provided at home. Institutional long-term care can be provided only if it is medically justified or if it is otherwise appropriate to ensure a dignified life and safe care for an older person. Permanence of care arrangements must be ensured.
Persons in long-term care need to be provided with opportunities for social interaction and meaningful activities. Elderly couples, whether married or not, have to be offered the option of cohabitation in long-term care.
Service needs to be evaluated comprehensively and without delay, services to be provided within three months
The Act guarantees older persons the right to a comprehensive evaluation of service needs without delay. The evaluation will then be used to draw up an individual service plan. Options must be discussed with the older persons themselves, and their opinions must be recorded in the service plan.
A case worker must be assigned to each older person in case they need help in matters related to the provision and coordination of services.
In urgent cases social welfare services must be provided without delay and in other cases within three months of a decision.
Services for older people to be planned in more detail by local authorities
The purpose of the Act is to ensure that local authorities prepare for the forthcoming demographic changes. Older people must be provided an opportunity to take part in the preparation of decisions concerning their living conditions and development of services. Local authorities must plan their activities so as to ensure as healthy ageing and as good functional capacity at old age as possible for the local residents.
Local authorities are required to draw up for each electoral period of the municipal council a plan for supporting the wellbeing of the ageing population and the availability of social welfare and health care services for older people. Moreover, the sufficiency and quality of the services has to be evaluated on an annual basis. Local authorities must allocate sufficient resources to the support of wellbeing and the providing of services.
Local authorities are obliged to consult the local council for older people in the planning, preparation and monitoring of any activities concerning older residents in the municipality.
Quality of services offered by service providers ensured through monitoring
The Act also provides for a standard of quality for services for older people provided by service providers. The number of personnel and their qualifications and job duties must be consistent with the number of older persons being provided services by the service provider and the level of service that their functional capacity requires.
Service providers must engage in self-monitoring in order to maintain and further develop the quality of their services. Self-monitoring will involve obtaining regular feedback from employees.
The Act enters into force on 1 July 2013 - demand for staff is being considered
The government proposed on 27 December that the bill be passed. The Act will enter into force on 1 July 2013.
The government will evaluate the staffing in the way required in the Act on Care Services for Older People during the year 2014 and, if the recommended level of staffing has not been achieved in 24-hour care (minimum 0.5), submit to Parliament a bill to add more detailed provisions on that to the Act.
The Government will monitor and evaluate the implementation of the objectives of the Act and its influence in particular on the wellbeing, health and functional capacity of the older population, the availability of social and health care services as well as the costs caused to local authorities.
Further information
Riitta Kuusisto, Ministerial Counsellor, Legal Affairs, tel. +358 (0)295 163 401
Päivi Voutilainen, Ministerial Counsellor, Social Affairs, tel. +358 (0)295 163 403
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