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Health systems in transition
Portugal
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have to pay the co-payments for the social care they receive. For hospital
admission episodes, the convalescence and palliative care units are financed
by the NHS. The medium-term and rehabilitation care units are co-financed
by the Ministry of Health (70%) and the Ministry of Labour, Solidarity and
Social Security (30%), while long-term care is co-financed by the Ministry of
Health (20%), the remainder being paid by the Ministry of Labour, Solidarity
and Social Security (Ordinance No. 994/2006, of 19 September 2006).
The Ministry of Health introduced changes to the RNCCI in December 2012
and the latest decision was the merger of the task force created in 2005 to start
and manage the public network of long-term care beds into the ACSS from
December 2012. The expansion of the network occurred through contracts with
private facilities, which increased the supply of long-term care beds.
In 2010, the number of facilities and the number of beds participating in
the RNCCI was, respectively, 218 facilities and 4625 beds. In November 2015,
the development of the network reached 7759 beds, representing an increase of
68% in 5 years (Table 5.2).
Table 5.2
Beds in the long-term care network, 2007–2015
2007 2008 2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014 2015
a
No. of long-term
care beds
1 902 2 870 3 938 4 625 5 595 5 911 6 642 7 160 7 759
Recovery
452
530
625
682
906
867
860
860
764
Rehabilitation
and medium term
663
922 1 253 1 497 1 747 1 820 1 895 2 021 2 306
Long-term care
732 1 325 1 942 2 286 2 752 3 031 3 692 4 094 4 411
Palliative care
55
93
118
160
190
193
195
185
278
Source
: RNCCI, 2016.
Note
:
a
Data until November 2015.
5.9 Services for informal carers
Demographic and social changes, among other factors, are determining the
ageing of the Portuguese population. As in the rest of Europe, long-term
care and home support for elderly and dependent people became a concern
for health services, especially in southern Europe, where elderly support was
traditionally provided by informal carers – family members, neighbours or
friends (Pego, 2013). Currently, two kinds of networks providing support to