The role of health and social care workers in long‐term care for elders in Poland, Czechia, Hungary and Slovakia: The transition from institutional to community care

Care for the elderly is one of the most important socioeconomic issues arising from the ageing of the population. Given the declining workforce in the care and health sectors in many countries, difficulties exist already in fully meeting care needs. Moreover, deinstitutionalization, which involves a transition from institutional to community‐based care, requires an increase in human resources in the care and health sectors. The article addresses long‐term care systems for the elderly and the conditions affecting the possibility for the Visegrád countries (Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) to transition from a post‐socialist model (familialism by default/unsupported familialization) to a European care model based on deinstitutionalization. A further aim of the article is to show some differences in the provision of long‐term care for the elderly that are observed in Central Europe, and to underline that their specific characteristics should be taken into account when planning and designing public policies and guidelines for social policy at the European Union level.