Slovenia is currently working on a reform of its long-term care system. The aim of the reform is to ensure a fiscally sustainable, accessible and high-quality system, with an emphasis on care in the home environment. Further, in order to slow down the rapid growth of public expenditure in this area in the long run, the reform targets more effective prevention, early rehabilitation and the effective use of information and communication technologies.

Throughout the preparation of the latest proposal for the new Long-Term Care Act, the Slovenian Ministry of Health used SHARE data for estimates about the current recipients of informal care or persons with unmet needs who could enter the new long-term care system. Additionally, SHARE data was used for insights into how individuals think about the long-term care system itself, how to organize care for their close relatives or what form of long-term care they would like to receive personally. This information represented the basis for estimating the funds to cover the expenses of those now informal care recipients who are supposed to enter the new long-term care system.

Further, the SHARE Slovenia team provided advice to the Slovenian Ministry of Health about measures of long-term care provision and their impact on costs of the health care system, especially about the effects of receiving different types of long-term care on health care utilization. The analysis is presented in: Srakar, A.; Majcen, B.; Bartolj, T.: Does Long-Term Care Provision Reduce Health Care Utilization? A Bayesian Nonparametric Approach to Longitudinal Mediation Analysis. SHARE Working Paper Series 48-2020. Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA). Munich. DOI: 10.17617/2.3257699.