Nursing and social care services
03.03.20. Care for the elderly
Yearly
Municipality
Division for health statistics (330), Åsne Vigran
Statistikkloven §2.2
Lov om helsetjenesten i kommunene § 6-3 og Lov om sosiale tjenester § 2 - 5
(not relevant)
These statistics are supposed to meet the increasing need for information among the central authorities for planning purposes, supervision and evaluations of the municipalities' care and nursing services. In addition the municipalities themselves are of course in need of comparable figures on county and national level to evaluate their own services
The official statistics of the public care and nursing services were for the first time collected in one data gathering and publishing routine in 1989. The background for this was the transfer of the responsibility for the nursing homes from the counties to the municipalities. Thus the total responsibility for all these services was transferred to the municipalities, and the administrative distinction between social (municipality services) and health services (county services) was abolished.
The ministry of health and social affairs, the ministry of local government and regional development, the municipalities, research institutes and media.
The official statistics of the public care and nursing services are based upon annual reports from all municipalities and institutions for aged in Norway. The 1998 material embraces all 435 municipalities and around 1100 institutions for the aged and disabled.
The statistics of the home based services consists of data concerning users of social home help and home nursing. These services have a wider group of users that also include younger people, among others physically handicapped and mentally retarded persons. The material also consists of information about the services' accessibility during the day and the week and data that elucidate the municipalities' demand of fees/user payment. The material also consists of man-year data within the home based service sector.
The man-year data in both sectors include all kinds of personnel, not only the care and nursing functions but also administration, kitchen, caretaker services etc. More-over, attention must be called to the fact that because of reorganisation, some municipalities no longer are able to differentiate between labour forces within the institutions and in the home based services. Hence this data will from now on be presented as total figures covering all the care and nurse services both within institutions and the home based sector.
Five questionnaires are being used for this purpose. One concerns dwellings for the aged and disabled and one concerns the home based services. In addition the municipalities are receiving a questionnaire for total registration of the man-years within both the home based services and the institutions for the aged. These are all sent the administration of these services in every municipality. The fourth questionnaire is addressed to every institution for the aged and disabled and concerns information about patients and personnel. Some data are also directly extracted from Statistics Norway's institution register, e.g. kind of institution, number of beds and various permanent facilities. The data of this register are updated annually. The institutions in these statistics include all the institutions within the municipal field of responsibility according to the Act of the social services. Some privately run institutions are also included. These are, however, few in numbers and are often supported by the municipalities.
Each municipality is estimated to use 270 minutes to complete the annual reports.
The new data are compared with data from the preceding year and various relative figures, for instance users, man-years and beds in institutions per 1 000 persons 80 years and older (or 67 years and above). In any case of conspicuous deviation from preceding years, the data basis is further checked and the figures are corrected as far as possible. Besides these controls, there are ordinary logical and validity controls intending to secure the logical relation between the items in the complemented questionnaires. In spite of an extensive revision of data some reservations must be taken concerning the figures presented on municipal level.
Man-year
These data are intended to embrace all kinds of activities within the home based services and the institutions, and are not only restricted to nursing and care functions. The data also contain administration and management personnel and as far as the institutions are concerned, kitchen and cleaning functions etc. The personnel are registered on the basis of their formal education by December 1998. The figures are reported in man-years, which means that the total numbers of part-time employees are converted into number of full time employees. Thus the total number of man-years is based on the assumption of stability among the personnel during the year. Employees without the specified education, are recorded in three collective groups. There must moreover be emphasised that doctors and physiotherapists no longer are included in the official nursing and care statistics. These professional groups are since 1994 only registered in the statistics of the health services in the municipalities.
Expenditure
These data are total and hence include all items of expenditure. They are drawn from Statistics Norway's municipal accounts and are no longer collected in the nursing and care survey. Similarly to the man-year data, the expenditure data can only be presented as a total figure, comprising both home based services and institutions.
Users of home based services
The figures cover all users of home help and home nursing or both services that were registered as active users at the end of the year. In general every person receiving services is regarded as one user, with one exception; households consisting of two or more persons receiving help are regarded as one user.
Home nursing is regulated by the Act of health services in the municipalities that prescribes professional nurse services. Home help is regulated by the Act of social services in the municipalities (of 13 December 1991) and is part of the term "practical assistance" that covers all kinds of help to the tasks of daily-life household given persons in need of such help because of old age or various handicaps.
Institutions for the aged
These are defined as a group of buildings where parts of the floorage are shared between residents, the household is common and care personnel are present 24 hours a day. This definition embraces all kinds of institutions falling under the two laws mentioned above and are as follows: nursing homes, old peoples homes, combined nursing and old peoples homes and in addition various municipal dwellings with full-time services.
Dwellings for the aged and disabled
This category includes other kind of municipal dwellings reserved for persons in need of help because of old age or handicap. They are also offered to mentally retarded persons who have left the traditional institutions according to a major reform concerning this group of disabled. These dwellings are not included in the institution-category, as they do not have a full-time service offer. Some of them have care and nursing services parts of the day. The other dwellings do not have this offer, and the residents are instead users of the home based services in the same way as other ordinary users. Many of these flats are adjusted for functionally disabled residents and some of them do also have to some extent common floorage and household.
In the case of non-response from either municipalities or institutions the questionnaires are completed with information from the previous year.
The nursing and care statistics has gone through several changes during the years. Despite these changes, the most central variables can be presented through time-series dating back to 1991.
The nursing and care statistics is correlated to the statistics of the municipal health services. Among other variables the man-years by physicians and physiotherapists in institutions for the elderly and disabled are published here.
The statistics is published twice a year, preliminary figures are published in June and yearly figures in October.
Bokmål/Nynorsk, English
An official statistics of Norway, Nursing and Care statistics, is published yearly. Some figures are also published yearly in "Health Statistics in the Nordic Countries by NOMESCO and in "Social protection in the Nordic Countries" by NOSOSCO.