Current Developments in Social Care Services for Older Adults in the Czech Republic: Trends Towards Deinstitutionalization and Marketization

Care for older people in early twenty-first-century Europe: dimensions and directions of change

“…The Czech Republic, representing a country where institutional care used to dominate the care service scene, has made drastic cuts in the number of places in long-term care institutions, albeit waiting lists remain long (CAP Kubalčíková and Havlíková, 2013;Kubalčíková and Havlíková, 2016). In Iceland, the number of nursing home beds decreased somewhat from 2006 to 2011, while needs have considerably increased, and access has become more strictly controlled than earlier (CAP Sigurðardóttir, 2014).…”

A marketization process in dispute: An analysis of serviced housing for the elderly in Finland, 2000–14

“…Further, there is no clear evidence of improved quality of services among private services (Salas, 2013). For instance, Kubalčíková and Havlíková (2016) find that the availability of home-based care has even declined and for-profit nursing homes have offered low-quality care and poor working conditions. According to Stolt, Blomqvist and Winblad (Stolt, Blomqvist, & Winblad, 2011; see also Winblad, Blomqvist, & Karlsson, 2017), the private care providers emphasize service aspects (e.g., residents participating in the formulation of their care plan) rather than structural prerequisites for good care (e.g., the number of employees per resident).…”

Social services in post-industrial Europe: an incomplete success story and its tragic moments

“…This was meant to replace residential care provision by domiciliary services, yet plans to professionalise these services have hardly been realised, so that municipalities are tinkering with meeting uncovered needs. There is also evidence on 'quasi-social' non-registered services filling the gap between the 'frozen' residential care sector and the shortage of publicly funded domiciliary care services meant to substitute it (Kubalčíková and Havlíková, 2016). This goes alongside shifting or dispersed responsibilities; in some places, undertakings employing agents without special training or degrees use programmes such as work integration schemes or funds for regional economic development in order to offer care services.…”

“…Efforts were concentrated on residential care during the post-war decades whereas domiciliary provision has become more dynamic after 1980 (Bahle, 2008;Da Roit and Sabatinelli, 2013;Giraud et al, 2014). Again, this pattern is prominent in Eastern Europe, too (Österle, 2011;CAP Kováčová et al, 2014;Juska and Ciciurkaite, 2015;Kubalčíková and Havlíková, 2016). Until the financial crisis, all latecomers were trying to catch up with the more mature welfare states (Guillén and Matsaganis, 2000;Da Roit and Sabatinelli, 2013;CAP Vaiou and Siatitsa, 2013;CAP Pace and Vella, 2014).…”