European Conference on Care and Protection of Senior Citizens: Indicators for Dignity at Old Age – the Finnish example Viveca Arrhenius Ministerial Adviser Ministry of Social Affairs and Health Finland Prague, 25th of May 2009

National Indicators on Welfare, Health and Gender in Finland  the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health is currently monitoring and assessing the effectiveness of its policies and interventions through a package of 44 indicators  the information is collected from different data sources (Statistics Finland, National Institute for Health and Welfare, MSAH, Finnish Centre for Pensions, Social Insurance Institution of Finland)

National Indicators on Welfare, Health and Gender in Finland  The indicators are grouped along the following strands: 1. Promotion of health and functional capacity (17 indicators) 2. Increasing the attractiveness of working life (3 indicators) 3. Reducing poverty and social exclusion (8 indicators) 4. Functioning sevices and reasonable income security (13 indicators) 5. Gender equality (3 indicators)

Indicators and targets for dignity of old age  People aged that can move outside alone without difficulties as a proportion of the age group  People living at home as a propotion of the age group  Pension-age expectancy for 50 year- olds - target for ,8 years for both women and men and preliminary for ,3 years

Indicators and targets for dignity of old age  Average number of years in working life  Proportion of people in low-income households - target for % and preliminary for %  Realisation of care guarantee: number of persons waiting over six months for specialised medical care - target for 2009: 3000 persons

National targets for services for older persons  Services for older persons, proportion of clients 75 year or older 1. Home help -target for ,5 % and for % 2. Service housing - target for ,5% and for ,5% 3. Old peoples´homes - target for ,8 % and for ,0%

National targets for services for older persons 4. Long-term care at health centres - target for ,0 % and for ,5% 5. Informal care recipients - target for ,3 % and for ,0%

National framework for high- quality services for older persons  Designed to help municipalities and co- operation districts to develop their services for older persons  The goal is to promote the quality and effectiveness of social and health services for older persons  Guidelines for values and principles, promoting health and welfare, personnel and management and care environments  Accessible in English at: (2008)

European challenges  To collect reliable and comparable data and statistics at national level  To adapt data collection into an European context avoiding duplication  To design European indicators which treat different systems, contents of services and member states fair  Consider linking the work on indicators for dignity of older persons to the work of the subgroup of the Social Protection Committee and other relevent processes

The way forward  Communication from the Commission (COM 2008) 418 final on A renewed commitment to social Europe: Reinforcing the Open Method of Coordination for Social Protection and Social Inclusion: - boosting analytical capacity and data collection aimed at supporting national target setting - three strands: poverty and social exclusion, pensions, healthcare and long-term care

The way forward -14 indicators listed in annex 2 including healthy life expectancy and relative income of older persons  The Indicators subgroup (ISG) work programme 2009: - amongst others work on indicators for active inclusion: housing and homelessness, social aspects of migration, material deprivation, child wellbeing, health and work intensity