In-depth monitoring of municipalisation of home care

Home health care is an important part of the care of the elderly, especially due to the "stay-in-place" policy. The Swedish government has clarified that they want to establish a unified municipal principal responsibility for the home health care. However, even though municipal responsibility for home health care in Sweden is implemented in several counties, no complete follow up of the effects of this organizational change been performed. In Jönköping County Council and the thirteen included municipalities a broad baseline assessment was performed in 2012, prior to shift in responsibility from county council to the municipals. The baseline included a broad collection of information in the home health care, in order to carry out a thorough evaluation after the takeover. The shift in responsibility of the home health care from municipality to county council was performed in 2012/2013. In the year of 2014 the first follow up was performed using the same methods as at baseline, which makes it possible to compare the results. The baseline assessment and the in-depth follow-up involved data collection by three methods: 1) Extracts from registers, 2) Surveys of staff working in the home health care (2012 N = 231; 2014 N = 285), 3) In depth-interviews with persons receiving home health care and home help/social services (2012 N = 31; 2014 N = 30).

Contact: Marie Ernsth-Bravell