Description
The Municipality of Újbuda has become a pioneer in Hungary in the field of strategies and measures tackling the aging problem thanks to its so-called “60+” programme. This includes various measures and actions aiming to improve the quality of life for the elderly and to bring the bottom-up initiatives of the local communities of seniors under an organised framework. The services developed under the 60+ programme have been gradually expanding to new field of services, and through this process, the Municipality of Újbuda concluded that the health and social sectors are in most need of innovative and cost-effective solutions. Project partners agreed that applying local elderly strategies in the field of health and social care system requires the establishment of a new organisational model framework: introducing innovative services going beyond and complementing the mandatory services offered by state and local providers; enabling a cost-effective service provision through the incorporation of voluntarism; building on local partnership between local key players (local municipalities and civil servants, health and social institutions maintained by the municipality or the state and their employees, NGOs active in voluntarism); improving the infrastructural, institutional and HR capacity of the relevant local key actors; building on the improved capacities of the local players to create effective and coherent service provision, mechanisms and processes; active participation of the citizens concerned (“60+” people and the volunteers). These conclusions led the partnership to jointly define the project’s general objective: “To elaborate, test, introduce and disseminate an innovative, cost-effective municipality-led local organisational model allowing for the provision of quality health & social helping care services building on voluntarism – community involvement - and local partnership.”
Summary of project results
Summary of bilateral results