Challenges in Swedish elderly home care services at night-time

• Up to date, we know little about how home care services is organized and performed at nighttime. There are no official statistics of night time care or the number of older people havingassistance at night. This paper aims to report from a survey with operation managers and theiraccounts of organization and provision of care at night.The material consisted of a sample of 37 of Sweden’s 290 municipalities, covering for urbanas well as rural areas, smaller and larger municipalities as well as bigger cities. Individualtelephone interviews were conducted with 41 operation managers responsible for night timecare. Standardised and open ended questions were raised to capture strategies of night timehome care organization and provision. The material was analysed quantitatively andqualitatively.The results revealed similarities as well as differences in organization where smallermunicipalities often had to find special solutions. The care workers had to manage emergencyalarm from the older persons as well as scheduled care work at night. The care work includeda lot of car driving and insecurity at night, such as bad weather and violence in the streets.Safety and dignity were raised by the managers as important values in provision of care, bothfor the elderly and staff.There were several challenges in demographic development and local politics, but also inrecruitment problems and staff’s working conditions. To organize for ageing in place, homecare needs to be user friendly for vulnerable persons, also at night time.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Sociologi -- Socialt arbete (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Sociology -- Social Work (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Sociology

sociologi

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)