A huge, novel challenge
Caring for individuals who are no longer able to take care of themselves due to mental or physical illness and disability is a rapidly growing challenge. According to the World Health Organization, two out of three older people are likely to need long term care at some point during their lives. In the European Union, this number is expected to increase from about 31 million in 2019 to 35 million in 2030 and 38 million in 2050, far exceeding the availability of services, which is already limited in many countries.
Long term care is a very complex challenge because of the number of different and changing needs of care recipients, and the number of actors that may be involved. However, unlike for other forms of welfare provision, such as hospital care or pensions, where we have very well established and tested models, most countries lack a reference model for long term care at this scale. The result is often fragmentation, poor quality of care, difficult access, unmet needs, inequalities, and inefficient allocation of resources. This is especially, but not exclusively true, in some Eastern and Southern European regions.
Networking to accelerate
Models for long term care provision will eventually emerge thanks to trial and error, comparisons between countries, or adaptation of other countries’ models, but it might take decades. We cannot afford to wait decades to solve this problem, for the costs for affected individuals, their families, and society as a whole would be huge.
Fast Forward Foundation wants to accelerate the development of a model for long term care by launching, together with our partners, an ambitious, long term capacity-building project.
The idea is to rapidly create the kind of personal and digital network that allow for rational, effective, efficient exchange of data, experience, best practices, and views among relevant stakeholders from different countries. New, related research projects can be carried out. Within this network, one or more new models will be co-designed, and then tested on a small scale in participating countries.
Steps to a model
State of the project
An initial coalition of partners from five countries (Italy, Greece, Poland, Belgium, Cyprus) is already established, but more partners can join it in the future.
We are currently looking for financial sources and new endorsements.
Are you involved in any aspect of long term care and would like to make a financial or in-kind contribution?