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11-08-2023

Home care services are set to expand from September

Iliustracija

In order to further increase the accessibility of home nursing services to people and improve the quality of the services provided, new legislative changes are being initiated to increase the number of services provided, to expand the teams providing outpatient nursing services, to widen the range of beneficiaries and to protect the professionals who provide them. 

“Changes in bringing healthcare services closer to the patient are necessary and much needed - especially as the population ages and more and more people and their relatives express a desire to receive services at home. Preparations for these changes have been underway for more than a year, with representatives of the Ministry of Health (MOH) visiting all districts and discussing with representatives of all municipalities. During the meetings, the vision of outpatient care services at home was presented and discussions were held with service providers and municipalities on how to organise outpatient care services in order to increase the accessibility of these services,” says dr. Danguolė Jankauskienė, Deputy Minister of Health.

“We are listening to the ideas of social partners and service providers. In the last phase, we already extended the hours of outpatient care services at home to daily - from 8am to 8pm in the evenings, weekends, and holidays. We have also gradually increased the number of reimbursed services for patients, and with this package of changes, we are further expanding opportunities for home care teams and patients,” says Marius Čiurlionis, Adviser of the Nursing and Long-Term Care Division of the Ministry of Health (MOH).   

Meetings with service providers and local authorities have given a clear picture: the number of services provided is insufficient. Increasing the number of services is necessary to ensure that patients receive comprehensive care. Therefore, for patients with high care needs, it is planned to increase the number of services to 3 per day and the total number of services from 260 to 365 per year. This means that people in need of home care services will be able to receive them every day. 

As of this year, home care providers can choose to employ occupational therapists, and as of 1 July 2024, they will have to be part of all home care teams, which is important for the continued rehabilitation and support of home care patients. 

Alongside the new changes, the range of patients receiving outpatient home nursing services has also been expanded to include patients who have been treated after an active surgical procedure - until now, outpatient home nursing services have been available only after day surgery services.

Another important change is planned for patients living in social care homes. The changes will allow outpatient home nursing teams to provide care in residential care facilities that do not have a personal health care licence to provide general nursing services. 

It is also planned to extend the scope of services. For people with identified care needs, services will be extended to educational institutions and the workplace, allowing them to remain independent and active in social and community activities. The new draft Order will also allow outpatient nursing services to be provided in social day care centres. 

Service providers and municipal representatives, in meetings and consultations, have stressed the need to define the maximum workload for members of outpatient home care teams in order to ensure that the services provided are of a high quality and that sufficient time is allocated to their provision. 

“Therefore, health care professionals have also been kept in mind during the development of this package of amendments - in order to protect them from burnout and heavy workloads, and to ensure the quality of the services provided, it is established that a full-time member of the outpatient home nursing services team may perform no more than 12 visits per day to recipients of outpatient home nursing services,” said M. Čiurlionis.

Around 50 thousand people across Lithuania are already using outpatient home nursing services, which are provided in all municipalities and are paid for by the Compulsory Health Insurance Fund (CHIF), so the patient does not have to pay for them.   

The Ministry points out that a referral for outpatient home care services is made by the patient’s family doctor, and that home care services are available to people who, due to a changed state of health or functional impairment, find it difficult to function fully in everyday life, as well as to people who need nursing care after day surgery. 

For more information about home care services go to: www.manoslauga.lt. 

Ministry of Health Communications Division 

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Last updated: 29-08-2023

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