The ageing of our societies is a common challenge that impacts communities across Europe. Social services at national, regional and local levels are at the forefront of responding to the growing long-term care (LTC) needs of our ageing populations, while struggling with workforce shortfalls and a lack of sustainable financing of services. Acknowledging these difficulties during November’s European Commissioner hearings, Roxana Mînzatu European Commissioner designate for Jobs, Skills and Preparedness emphasised the need for a “European Care Deal” to address the increasing need for long-term care in EU Member States.
Let’s have a look at some of the key elements such a deal would need to entail.
Building on the EU Care Strategy
The European Care Strategy, including its Council Recommendation on access to affordable high-quality long-term care, is a major EU initiative to build on. In October, the national progress reports, were published. That there is still space for improvement was demonstrated by The European Social Network’s (ESN) 2024 Social Services Index, which looked, among other, things, at long-term care coverage. The collected data from the Index show that several countries, including Romania and Poland, still heavily rely on residential and informal care, and that investment is required to develop community-based care services across Europe.
RuralCare, implemented by ESN member the regional Government of Castilla y Leon, has shown that 24/7 community-based services can be set up in remote and rural areas, yet there is still a long way to go.
Tapping into the potential of technology
The Recommendation calls on Member States to roll-out digital care solutions. ESN has been actively contributing to developing such solutions in projects such as ACE – which uses technology in home care. However, there is a need to move from pilots to structural solutions.
Meanwhile, the Social Services Index has shown that Spain is a positive example, having already rolled out telecare services to over 500,000 people. ESN member, the Andalusian Agency for Social Services and Dependency, one of this year’s European Social Services Awards Nominees, has shown how the use of predictive technologies in combination with telecare can accelerate improvements in older people’s autonomy. The 2025 European Social Services Conference entitled ‘Where Care Meets Tech’ will be a knowledge exchange hub for European social services leaders tapping into technology coupled with relational approaches to meet social and demographic challenges.
Ensuring quality
When setting up the Care Deal, quality assurance should be a core element. The national reports describing the measures put in place by national governments to respond to the EU Care Strategy show that quality assurance is still work in progress.
How quality mechanisms for LTC might look was presented by ESN on 12 November, during a conference celebrating the second anniversary of the Long-Term Care Council Recommendation. ESN provided insights from its current work on quality in social services, giving quality assurance examples such as the draft standards for home care support developed by the Health Information and Quality Authority un Ireland. It also highlighted procurement clauses used by local authorities to ensure quality, as documented in ESN’s Contracting for Long-Term Care report. All these have contributed to the development of our own proposal for a European social services quality framework that we will present in 2025.
Developing a workforce strategy
The availability of a skilled workforce is another key factor in quality long-term care. With this in mind ESN welcomes the new Commissioner-designate mission to create a framework for addressing long-term care workforce challenges. This should however be linked to a wider strategy to alleviate workforce pressures in social services, which face issues in attracting and retaining workers. ESN is therefore calling for a wider European Social Services framework that includes a specific workforce strategy.
Gathering local knowledge to bring forward European action
Local and regional social services in public authorities should be key partners of a European Care Deal since they have a key responsibility in managing these services. We have been working with the Council of Europe, which last month published a resolution on ensuring access to quality social care for older persons that highlights the challenges local authorities need to navigate when it comes to aging communities.
Building on our extensive knowledge as a Network, ESN is eager to work with the upcoming European Commission, the European Parliament, national governments and local and regional authorities on a European Care Deal.
The challenges the Deal wishes to address are relevant for other social services, so the EU should address them not only from a long-term care angle, but through an overarching Social Services Framework.
