[The report "Care of the Aged": experiments with the restructuring of its provisions]

Recently, March 1986, the Dutch minister of Welfare, Health and Culture offered an important policy report: 'Care of the elderly' to the parliament. Its underlying concept is individualised care. This philosophy, however, is blocked by the also formulated policy goal of cost control and the insufficient elaboration of the goal of stimulating personal responsibility. The individualization of care is also not specified because of the poor analysis of the need of care. The report should further have paid more attention to the need of reinforcing the social position of the elderly. It proposes concrete plans for experiments suitable to the field, especially with the co-operation of homes for the aged and nursing homes and the further development of nursing at home. Whether sufficient financial means will be supplied, however remains questionable. It is also not stated that these experiments should be realised on a low level, near the base, in order to correspond better with the needs and wishes of the consumers of care themselves. The proposed concentration of large research programs concerning the provisions for the elderly and their social position in few research institutions at last is not approved. Also in this field co-operation is recommended for reasons of multiformity, the use of existing--now dispersed--knowledge, and the spread evaluation of many experiments.