Establish a social support system for family caregivers of disabled elderly people

Second, the systematic inadequacy of family caregiver support policies and the limited content and form of support. The negative impact of long-term care of disabled elderly people on family caregivers is multifaceted. According to international experience, although different countries implement different family caregiver support policies, they generally include five aspects: breathing support, economic support, psychological support, information support, and alleviating caregiver care-work conflicts. At present, there have been some explorations in the aspects of family caregiver respite service, caregiving skills training and child care leave in China, but there are few other aspects of support, and the forms of existing support services are very limited.

Third, the family caregiver support service covers a limited number of objects, the characteristics of compensation-type welfare are obvious, and there are inaccurate service supply problems. Taking domestic caregiver respite service as an example, local governments promote the pilot of respite service by purchasing services, but due to the limitation of local financial payment capacity, the scope of service objects is very limited, giving priority to families with extreme poverty, subsistence allowances, and low income, and the characteristics of supplementary welfare are obvious, and only the unilateral characteristics of the elderly such as the degree of disability are used as the qualification for caregivers to obtain respite service. In the pilot family caregiver training service, many caregivers who need caregiving skills training cannot go out to participate in the training because they are busy taking care of the elderly or the frequency of participation is very low, and some really urgent training needs have not been effectively met.

Fourth, family caregiver support lacks sufficient and stable funding sources, and the practical landing and sustainability of policy support lack financial guarantee. In the future, all aspects of support for family caregivers will continue to develop in the direction of normalization and universal benefits. If only relying on the financial support of the government, the financial pressure of the government will continue to increase, resulting in the support policy is difficult to sustain or the actual effect is greatly reduced.

We will improve policy support for family caregivers

In many countries where population ageing is well advanced, long-term care policies for older persons include not only policy support for disabled older persons, but also focus on supporting their family caregivers. Based on our national conditions, we should draw on some international experience to construct and improve our support policy system for disabled elderly family caregivers.

First, to coordinate and standardize family caregiver support practice with national policies and regulations. Introduce a special family caregiver act or rely on existing laws (such as the Law on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of the Elderly) to include family caregivers in the scope of legislative protection. Formulate unified family caregiver support policies and regulations at the national level to promote the orderly development of family caregiver support practices. At the same time, the interpretation and publicity of caregiver support policies and regulations should be strengthened to enhance the public's understanding of family caregiver groups, create a good social atmosphere to care for and support family caregivers, and enhance the awareness of family caregivers' right to seek social support.

Second, adopt a diverse mix of policy instruments to enhance the comprehensiveness and comprehensiveness of caregiver support. Drawing on the experience of developed countries, comprehensive social support for family carers is provided through the comprehensive use of economic subsidies (caregiver allowances, caregiver training subsidies), tax deductions, social support services (breathing services, support hotlines, psychological counseling, caregiver support groups), legal holidays and other policy means. During the formation of the policy system, attention should be paid to the dependencies between different types of support, for example, supporting caregivers to participate in skills training may require supporting respite services. At the same time, attention is paid to the construction of various types of caregiver support information and the integration platform of welfare policy information for caregivers, so that caregivers can obtain all relevant support information in a one-stop and convenient way.

Third, establish scientific and operational needs assessment standards to improve the fairness and accuracy of caregiver support. The degree of support needs of family carers is affected by many aspects, such as the carers themselves, the elderly people being cared for and the family situation, which makes the assessment of caregiver support needs very complicated. With reference to foreign experience and national conditions, the object of economic subsidies for caregiving is determined according to factors such as the economic status of caregivers and disabled elderly people, and the intensity of caregiving by caregivers, and the standard of caregiver subsidies is formulated according to local conditions. In terms of other support services, factors such as the degree of disability of the caregiver, the intensity of care of the caregiver, family support, caregiver care pressure, etc. are comprehensively considered to identify key support objects, and the required service content and appropriate service delivery forms are clearly defined.