Countries across Europe, and indeed around the world, are confronting the social, economic and political challenges of an ageing population. Among the most pressing of these challenges, is securing adequate and sustainable long-term care and support for older people. There is growing consensus that long-term care services should look beyond a medical model of ‘care’. Instead, they should take a broader, more holistic view in which older people’s well-being and quality of life and their preferences regarding care and support are central to the design of services in line with existing human rights standards.
Building on the achievements of the disability rights discourse, a conceptual framework for a human rights-based approach to care and support for older persons was developed as part of this project. Furthermore, two tools that can contribute to monitoring policies and their outcomes for older people in Europe were also created:
the Rights of Older People Index (ROPI) and
the Scoreboard on Outcome Indicators.
Together, the ROPI and the Scoreboard contribute to fill an important gap, as multi-dimensional tools to monitor the situation of older people with care and support needs, based on a human-rights approach. They highlight gaps in legislation and the implementation of policies, as well as gaps in data. The Final Report presents the results of the ROPI and the Scoreboard in 12 European countries.
