Abstract Chapter 5

Chapter 5 provides an updated picture of social care and long-term care sectors in Italy, dealing with frail elderly and disabled people. Data about public interventions are presented together with a mapping of the different public services available and estimations about the total number of citizens in need that could potentially benefit from such services. The analysis shows that the overall public effort in social care and long term care is still insufficient if compared with the potential need of the population, since only the 30% (on average for the two targets) of citizens in needs are receiving care through public residential, daily or home care services. The Chapter then provides an overview of elderly hospitalizations, focusing on citizens aged 85 and more, with the aim of unravelling possible links between health, social and long-term care. The analysis is focused on inpatient care, rehabilitation care and post-acute care (for the year 2015), showing that elderly 85plus access the hospital more than twice a year (61,4% of the hospitalizations, with an average of 1,5 per patient and 11 days average length). This is true for men more than for women. 73% of the hospitalization end without any kind of care services. 28% of the hospitalizations are registered for the same medical group (so that we can suppose are consequences of the same illness or health condition). 30% are the follow up of hospitalizations registered in the previous years (and thus part of a long trajectory). These features taken together, lead to the conclusion that hospitalisations are often used by families as an answer to long term care needs in absence of more appropriate settings.