Kontakt 2011, 13(2):157-165 | DOI: 10.32725/kont.2011.020

Development of equipment of regions with services of social care for seniors and handicapped peopleHealth and Social Sciences - Original article

Ladislav Průša

Výzkumný ústav práce a sociálních věcí, Praha

Introduction of a new system of financing social services offers prerequisites for finding an optimum form of providing human needs under adverse social conditions, which should increase the efficacy of the financial means used for this purpose. The target of the present contribution is an analysis of the equipment of regions with social services for seniors and handicapped people and evaluation of implementation of modern European trends in this field in our country.
It is shown that there are very considerable differences in equipment of particular regions and that the availability of particular services is not at the same level in all the regions. Thus, in the next period it is necessary to considerably improve the attitude to planning the social services particularly at the level of cities or villages with offices having extended competences and to reflecting the knowledge obtained in particular practical activities for providing this spectrum of public services.
The analysis performed also indicated that the topical trends occurring in Europe, i.e. a decline from the care provided within stay in social institutions and incline to the care provided in the natural environment of particular clients, are implemented in our country to a limited extent only. This mainly results from the fact that the system of financing the social services is defined in a quite unsuitable manner. The development of the whole system of the social care services is limited by establishing maximum levels of reimbursements of the stay and catering in inpatient and outpatient institutions and of particular interventions performed under field conditions on the part of their users. During this, their level is established in a way that does not make it possible to cover even average state costs of the given type of the service by the recognized level of the contribution, which causes a dependence of givers of social services on allocations from the state budget or possibly from sources of particular regions and cities. However, there is no legal claim to these allocations and thus, the whole system of social services is static and offers no stimulation in support of expected and desirable changes in the social service structure.

Keywords: social services; equipment of regions with social services; financing of social services

Received: March 24, 2011; Accepted: April 26, 2011; Published: June 20, 2011  Show citation