Elderly care services

Home help services (hemtjänst)

If you need assistance with everyday activities, you can apply for home help services. There are two areas of focus in home help: household services and personal care services.

• Household services include cleaning, cooking, laundry, etc.
• Personal care services include assistance with showering, dressing/undressing, moving around, etc.

Other services for which you can apply to the municipality

There are other services you can apply for, such as daytime activities, personal safety alarms and companion services. Contact your municipality to find out more about these and other services.

Elderly housing – special housing (särskilt boende)

Housing for the elderly is formally called special housing. Sometimes these are referred to as group homes or nursing homes. Regardless of what the housing is called, the health and social care in elderly housing is adapted to your needs for safety, community and self-determination. There is access to health and social care staff 24 hours a day at elderly housing facilities.

To be granted permission to live in elderly housing, you must have a significant need for health and social care.

When you live in elderly housing, it is your own home. When you need health and social care, the staff must respect your wishes and your private life. It is you, for example, who decides when someone will visit you.

There are several different focus areas for elderly housing.

Focus areas for elderly housing

• General health and social care: for individuals with health and social care needs, elderly housing without a specific focus. Health and social care staff are available 24 hours a day.
• Dementia care homes: for individuals with dementia. Health and social care staff are available 24 hours a day.
• Assisted living facilities (servicehus): for individuals with health and social care needs. Individuals living in assisted living facilities have received a decision granting special housing assistance but apply for home help to receive support from staff.

Other housing

There are other types of special housing. These include short-term housing (korttidsboende) and sheltered housing (trygghetsboende).

Short-term housing is a special type of accommodation in which you can live for a short period of time or regularly in periods. This can, for example, be in connection with discharge from the hospital or as a relief service for relatives.

There are both assistance-assessed sheltered housing, which you apply for, and non-assistance-assessed sheltered housing, for which no application is needed. Sheltered housing facilities do not have any staff, so if you need home help support, you must apply for it.

Senior living facilities available on the open market are not to be considered elderly housing, nor are sheltered housing facilities that do not require assistance decisions.

Public or private elderly care

Elderly care can be provided under public or private management.

Public management

Activities carried out under the municipality’s own management, primarily with their own employed staff.

Private management

Activities carried out by private companies, municipality-owned companies, associations, foundations, cooperatives or religious communities. These include all activities that public organisations purchase from private health and social care providers, regardless of whether they were procured as an entire facilities service contract or in the form of individual services.