Management of Health and Social Care Services in Local Government

Pierrakos George

Course Outline

The course is a special scientific field that incorporates the specialised concepts of the principles of decentralised regional policy oriented towards the field of health and social care.

The curriculum of the course aims firstly to form a comprehensive field of knowledge for students in such a way as to fully understand the trends towards the evolution of health systems that achieve equality of access to health and social care services and the maximisation of the individual’s independence in order to avoid social disability and exclusion. The new objective is to provide coordinated cross-sectoral care, focusing on meeting citizens’ health and social care needs.

Chronic disease is one of the most important challenges facing healthcare systems. Many people with chronic diseases survive for a long time, but need constant care. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), chronic diseases are defined as “being of long duration, generally slow in progression”, and according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States “medical conditions that have not been cured, once acquired, are considered chronic.” The comorbidity of many long-term diseases in patients leads to the complexity of their care with the need for more care by healthcare professionals, as their condition is likely to worsen and face more difficulties. Most often, the family is unable to properly provide the patient with any care or doesn’t even know how to deal with an illness. These changes require connecting the provided Primary Health and Social Care Services into an integrated service delivery model, since the one-dimensional prevention of diseases alone seems to be no longer sufficient. It is therefore important to create an environment in which additional personalised care is necessary. In the long-term care of patients, the patient himself plays a leading role in self-care, while the role of the healthcare professional is supportive in order to strengthen and increase self-care capacity, resulting in strong relationships between the patient and the healthcare professional.

Upon completion of the course students will be able to know, develop and apply methods and techniques related to:

• The role of local government in the development of specific welfare policies
• The basic operating principles of Primary Health Care and Social Care
• The importance of Help at Home as a tool for local government welfare policy
• The operation of basic Models of Long-Term Health Care and Social Care Management
• The need for a rational spatial distribution of health and social care services in the local community
• Funding models and relevant European experience
• The Greek reality with its strengths and weaknesses.