Sociální služby pro seniory a jejich dostupnost ve Středočeském kraji

The population of the Czech Republic is aging and the pressure to offer quality and affordable social services for the elderly is growing. The theoretical part provides a comprehensive view on the issue of social services for the elderly and their provision. The following practical part focuses on the evaluation of the availability of social services for the elderly in the location Mníšek pod Brdy and its surroundings and interprets answers received in semi-structured interviews with persons working in the field of social services for elderly. The hypothesis of this work is that cities, due to the lack of capacity of social services, are themselves replacing the role of regional authorities. The main conclusions confirm the need to reorganize the system of social services for the elderly. In the long-term, the current setting is not sustainable and cannot respond flexibly to increasing demand. The current system of financing does not allow efficient management of finances for providers. Thus, it prevents the development of services provided. Moreover, the conditions for provision of social services for the elderly for private providers should be set more favourably. The private providers can help ensure sufficient capacities of social services for the elderly and adapt their offered services to the increasingly specific needs of clients. In future, it would be beneficial to focus on a closer interconnection of social services for the elderly with health services.