Ageing Europe puts pressure on informal care

The high levels of reliance on informal care across EU Member States - with 15% or more of care being provided on an informal basis in countries such as Belgium, France, Latvia and Romania – comes with significant social and economic costs for both carers and society, including loss of employment, social protection expenditure, social isolation and the healthcare needs of informal carers. Furthermore, high levels of informal care are a contributing factor to the low female employment rate in many EU countries, particularly so in Croatia, Czechia, Italy and Poland.

Eurofound's new flagship report on Quality of life and public services analyses the access, quality and sustainability of long-term care services across the EU, highlighting the over-reliance on informal care in most countries and the growing need for more formalised home and community care services.

Eurofound’s flagship report suggests that formal long-term care provision needs to be expanded across the board, but particularly in the 17 Member States where use is lowest, which includes Slovakia, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Portugal and Estonia at the lower end. It also outlines that there is a need to improve the provision of formalised home and community care in the half of Member States where income is lowest, as the proportion accessing these services is less than half that of high income countries.

In terms of access to long-term care services, the report shows that there are a variety of issues including low availability of services in some countries (Cyprus and Czechia), high containing costs (Austria and Belgium) and general affordability issues (Luxembourg, Malta and the Netherlands). In assessing the quality of long-term care across the EU, many users reported that the adequacy of communication with their carer was an issue, while one third of users expressed concerns about fairness in relation to corruption and unequal treatment.

Particularly in light of the increasing demand for care services, Eurofound’s research identifies that long-term care needs can be postponed and sometimes prevented by providing good access to primary healthcare, good quality housing, housing adjustments and a safe local environment. Furthermore, formalised community and home care services can identify and address emerging problems at an early stage and prevent deterioration of a person’s living conditions.

Overall Eurofound's new flagship report shows the necessity to develop high quality long-term care services across the EU, in particular improving the provision of formal community and home care services to lessen the reliance on informal care and adequately meet the needs of Europe’s ageing population.

Read more:

• Download the report ‘Challenges and prospects in the EU: Quality of life and public services’
• Flip through the chapter ‘Long-term care services: Access and quality ’
• Surf the data: European Quality of Life Survey 2016