Liberalisation of Social-Service Financing in the Czech Republic

More than 10 years ago, a new law on social services came into force from which all the experts had expected that it would contribute to development of the entire spectrum of provided social services. However, previous experience with application of the law shows that this objective has not been fulfilled. The main cause of this situation is often seen in the fact that the social-service financing system is inefficient. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to analyse the latest research carried out in this area in the Czech Republic and to evaluate on that basis whether liberalisation of the financing system would remove the main causes of the current situation. It turns out that one of the key problems of the current situation is the fact that health insurance companies contribute to the financing of the nursing and rehabilitation care in residential social-care facilities in a minimum extent only, and therefore these facilities are dependent on subsidies from public resources. It is thus necessary to search for another method of financing the nursing and rehabilitation care so that the care indicated by a physician and provided by paramedical staff could be paid from the public health-insurance system in accordance with legal regulations.