The meanings of long-term care sustainability in Portugal: national report

• Type: Technical Report
• Date: 2025

Authors

Lopes, Alexandra (Author) FLUP; Lemos, Rute (Author) FLUP

Other information

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17549358

Abstract (EN): It was possible to identify a shared understanding of sustainability when revising the literature and when interviewing key stakeholders, although a narrow one: sustainability equates financial sustainability. The word “sustainability” as such is only used in association with financial aspects, both by interviewees, in research papers and in policy documents. Aspects of what one would consider social sustainability are not addressed as such. Discussions on sustainability seem to always circle back to financial aspects. During the interviews the stakeholders mentioned several aspects of how LTC operates in Portugal that they see as sources of pressure that may ultimately put the system at risk. Shortage of workers and low qualifications are generally acknowledged as one of the most straining problems in the LTC sector. Available data seems to support the concerns expressed by both interviewed stakeholders and read in the academic literature about the insufficient amount of LTC provision in the country and about underfunding of LTC. Because the LTC system is very centralised in the government regarding issues of funding and overall regulation, and because the system relies heavily on provision of services by the non-profit sector, the truly influential stakeholders in debates about sustainability are government officials and representatives of non-profits. The territorial dimension intersects discussions about sustainability on aspects of additional pressure on the financials associated to provision of services in certain regions of the country, although it is not a topic per se, neither in the literature nor in stakeholder’s discourses. The narrow understanding of sustainability as financial sustainability has led to a one-dimension debate that revolves around the topic of funding (or underfunding to be more exact). Interestingly, there is hardly any debate about funding models, apart some discussions of a purely academic nature. The debate seems confined to a perception of care provision being a constant struggle between providers requesting more funds and the central government resisting expanding social expenditure based on budgetary constraints.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

Notes: Indexed in OpenAIRE. Action full title: Learning from long-Term Care practices for the European Care Strategy. Acronym: LeTs-Care

No. of pages: 24