Help in the event of impaired health: nursing care keeps you safe and secure

You can use the services of a day-care facility if you need special assistance or nursing care after a hospital stay or if you are lonely because you live alone. You spend part of the day there and are then taken home. In addition to care in its narrower sense, you also have your meals at the day-care facility and can join in specially organised recreational activities. Do you need round-the-clock assistance for a few days or weeks, perhaps because your relatives are away on holiday? If this is the case, you can take up the offer of short-term care. This allows you to move into a care facility for a maximum of four weeks and receive the care and services you need. When your stay is over, you return to your everyday life at home.

It is not always possible for the families of people in need of long-term care to be on hand to help. This is where mobile nursing services come in to supplement family-provided care and arrange continued care in the home. These provide services involving basic care (personal hygiene, nutrition, movement and exercise) and curative nursing care (care prescribed by a doctor due to illness). In addition, these services frequently offer domestic support (meals on wheels, home alert and so on) and can also give advice on issues relating to home care. Care services are offered by non-profit organisations (such as the welfare associations) and also by commercial providers.

The following questions might be helpful in finding the right service for you. You should be able to answer most questions with “Yes”:

• Does the home care service have a service and remuneration contract (Versorgungs- und Vergütungsvertrag) with the long-term care insurance fund to enable them to bill the services directly to the fund?
• Does the home care service have more professionals than ancillary staff?
• Does the home care service operate according to a specially developed nursing and care concept?
• Is the home care service based near your home to ensure that journeys are short?
• Is a personalised care plan drawn up and discussed with you or your relatives?
• Are the care services documented in detail?
• Does the home care service cooperate with other institutions?
• Can the home care service cater to your individual needs and give consideration to your living habits, e.g. through flexibly timed calls at weekends or during the night?
• Can the home care service guarantee that you are cared for by the same carers to the extent possible and do not have to repeatedly adjust to new nursing staff?
• Can the home care service cover all the service areas of particular importance to you?
• Does the home care service inform you in detail of which services are paid for by the long-term care insurance fund and which costs you have to bear yourself?