Personal assistance in Sweden - Support and service for persons with certain functional impairments

The political goal and the aim of Swedish disability policy today is to give persons with disabilities the same opportunities as others to participate in society and to live together with others - the principles of normalisation and integration. Two particular acts came into force on the 1st of January 1994, the Act concerning Support and Service for Persons with Certain Functional Impairments (LSS) and the Act concerning Assistance Compensation (LASS). LSS gives persons with severe functional disabilities, either physical or mental, the legal right to 10 different kinds of support and services. One of the most important elements in LSS is the right to personal assistance. The idea of personal assistance is to provide support that is tailor-made to the individual as far as possible and to optimise the person's influence over how the support is arranged. The aim of this article is to describe and analyse the right personal assistance from an administrative perspective. The focus is on the application and decision process and the development of this support during the years.