New Eurofound report on Access to care services: Early childhood education and care, healthcare and long-term care

The report presents an overview of the current situation in various EU Member States, Norway and the UK, challenges and differences in access between population groups. It shows that the access issues are mainly caused by a combination of unaffordability, household, organisational and societal-level factors. Eurofound highlights in this report, that to address access problems due to unaffordability, it is important to consider all costs and income aspects. Regarding the right to access good-quality care services, there is a need to improve the multiple dimensions in the process of access, from identifying to meeting needs, addressing household, organisational and societal factors.

Accessible, affordable and good quality social services is one of the principles stated in the European Pillars of Social Rights, and key for social protection and inclusion. The report provides three specific measures to ensure the access to care services:

• practices to make ECEC more inclusive, particularly for children with special educational needs and disabilities.
• access to e-healthcare, including e-consultations and e-prescriptions, which can facilitate access to healthcare for people in remote and rural areas in particular.
• access to respite care, which can support informal carers and establish contact with formal services for people with long-term care needs.

Read the full report here.