Response to interpellation 2024/25:278 on the municipalities' conditions for providing a safe elderly care
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
M argues that the municipalities' finances are linked to growth and that tax cuts for high-income earners as well as a re-established work principle are important for financing elderly care 1. M considers the increase in the elderly to be a success story 2, that growth is crucial for future welfare 2 and that the government's work to combat inflation strengthens the municipalities' finances 2. M is uninterested in whether the care is provided in public or independent management as long as the quality is high 3. S claims that elderly care is in free fall with chronic understaffing 4 and that the government prioritizes tax cuts for the rich over welfare 4.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Speakers (13)
Statsrådet Anna Tenje (M)
Madam Speaker! How wonderful that so many want to participate in this debate and that the commitment to Swedish elderly care seems to have become so great in this chamber! This is, after all, only about the second time during a two-year period that I, as a government minister, get the privilege of discussing precisely elderly care by reason of an interpellation submitted by members in this chamber, so it is very pleasing to see such great commitment.
Madam Speaker! Linnéa Wickman has asked me how I justify the government's prioritization of further tax cuts for high-income earners while the country's elderly care faces major challenges. Linnéa Wickman has also asked what measures I intend to take to address the understaffing within the country's elderly care, which, according to Kommunals' investigations, daily entails risks for the elderly and contributes to fewer and fewer nursing assistants seeing a future within the profession. Finally, Linnéa Wickman has asked me how I intend to ensure that municipalities and regions can recruit and retain enough employees within elderly care and healthcare given the demographic development and the increasing needs.
In Sweden, we have a system of municipal self-government. Elderly care falls within the municipal area of responsibility. Through the right of municipal taxation, the municipalities have both an extensive responsibility for and a great opportunity to influence the financing of their activities. Tax revenues account for the very largest part of the municipalities' total revenues. The municipalities' economic conditions are therefore, as with the rest of the public sector, strongly linked to the development of the tax base and economic growth. In order to strengthen the municipalities' finances and the conditions to finance elderly care in the long term, increased growth and a re-established work line are therefore of great importance.
The budget bill for 2025 focuses on supporting the economy's recovery through reforms that increase growth and strengthen households. This includes, among other things, easing the tax burden for the Swedish people and various measures to get more people into work. That the economy grows and Sweden becomes wealthier is an important prerequisite to be able to finance the investments required for Sweden to become a safer and more secure country to live in.
As I mentioned, elderly care falls under municipal self-government, and issues regarding staffing and competence development are ultimately an employer's responsibility. It is about, for example, being an attractive employer, strengthening leadership within elderly care, and finding solutions for a sustainable working life. The municipalities have both the opportunity and the responsibility to take measures to ensure the supply of staff and competence.
The state can simultaneously strengthen the municipal sector's conditions to plan and execute the welfare mandate. Despite the fact that the state's budgets for 2023 and 2024 needed to be restrained to combat inflation, the government during these years has prioritized welfare and implemented reinforcements of the general state grants to the municipal sector with a total of 16 billion kronor. The reinforcements have been permanent and thus continue to strengthen the municipal sector's finances during 2025 and onwards. The government's successful inflation fight also leads to the municipal sector's finances being expected to improve when inflation stabilizes at a low level and the sector's pension costs decrease. According to Sveriges Kommuner och Regioners forecasts, the result is judged to be strengthened by 50 billion kronor in 2025 compared to 2024. At the same time, an economic recovery is expected, and tax revenues are expected to increase at a faster pace again.
Elderly care is a priority issue for the government, which has taken several measures to strengthen the quality of care. The government does this, among other things, through the sector grant for elderly care, through the reform of the protected professional title for nursing assistants, and by extending and developing the Elderly Care Boost (Äldreomsorgslyftet). The government is also working on a new Social Services Act, which involves a transition of care to become more preventive, knowledge-based, and accessible. In the budget bill for 2025, several further proposals are submitted to strengthen Swedish elderly care, and the government will continue to work with several reforms for a stronger and safer elderly care in Sweden.
Linnéa Wickman (S)
Madam Speaker! Thank you to the Minister for the opening answer!
I note that it is high time that the Minister comes here to debate the situation in the country's elderly care, as the situation within Swedish elderly care is serious.
When Kommunal asks the country's nursing assistants within elderly care, fewer than half state that they want to continue working within three years. In ten years, the proportion who want to continue working has fallen by a full 40 percent. In the same survey, more than half answer that the working hours never or not particularly often can be combined with family life or social activities. At the same time, one in three answers that the staffing daily or some or a few times a week is so low that it poses a risk for the elderly.
Kommunals chair Malin Ragnegård states, based on among other things this survey, that elderly care is in free fall and that these figures should trigger a political crisis in Sweden. Kommunals members are breaking down as they try to uphold an underfunded system, with chronic understaffing and the labor market's highest sickness absence rates as a result. Given that the proportion of the population who are 85 years or older will increase by nearly 170,000 people over the next ten years, it becomes even more alarming.
Madam Speaker! I do not think it is a surprise to the Minister that elderly care faces major challenges in terms of both competence supply and demographics. But I want to assert that the political priorities that the government makes do not in any way meet these challenges.
One must also look at the development. Over the last 19 years, 13 national budgets have been conservative and characterized by large tax cuts that have primarily benefited the country's wealthy.
During this mandate period, the government has not only continued on the path it set out but has significantly reinforced it budget after budget. The Minister gives himself and other high-income earners, for example members of parliament, thousands of kronor in reduced tax per month. Half of the government's reform space in the state budget is spent this year on just this, which is also very inefficient policy if one wants to reduce unemployment and accelerate growth and the economy. The nursing assistants, on the other hand, do not get more colleagues, better conditions, or for that matter any significant tax cut to speak of.
Even though it is the municipalities that are responsible for elderly care, their conditions are strongly affected by the size of the state grants and by the fact that the state grants are not adjusted in relation to the rate of inflation. It is something that we Social Democrats have proposed should be done and which our Nordic neighboring countries do. It would be to take responsibility for building a more robust elderly care that can meet the challenges and where the budget is not eroded from year to year.
We must remember that the municipalities' tax levels are, of course, also influenced by whether the government takes its share of the responsibility for financing the common welfare. I actually think that we are now, after the resource supplements for years have not matched the actual needs, in a position where a reasonable question to ask is: How many more tax cuts at the national level can elderly care endure? I wonder if the Minister for Health and Social Affairs truly considers it a reasonable priority to lower taxes for the country's richest in this serious situation.
Kristoffer Lindberg (S)
Madam Speaker! I thank Member Linnéa Wickman for an important interpellation.
According to the trade union Kommunal, cuts were made in a majority of Sweden's municipalities during the year we have just finished. The activities where the most savings were seen were elderly care and the school. This hits hard both against the staff and against those who are elderly and dependent on the elderly care's interventions.
Kommunal is clear: More resources are needed for the municipalities. Sweden is in a welfare crisis and specifically a healthcare crisis. In some contexts, there is talk of cuts on par with the 90s crisis. We have seen a warning wave over the Swedish health and medical care. But instead of injecting more money, the government uses almost half of its reform space to lower the tax for the very richest.
Both the Swedish municipalities and the opposition here in the chamber have repeatedly warned against these cuts in welfare. Now we see the consequences of the government's policy for healthcare, schools, and elderly care.
Madam Speaker! I want to give an example from reality, where one deals with the government's welfare betrayal every day. I live in Bollnäs municipality in the heart of Hälsingland. There, the government's policy is clearly noticeable. Besides the fact that the economic situation is tough generally when the government's state grants are not enough to cover the costs, the government also makes cuts directly aimed at elderly care.
That the government has abolished the state subsidy to promote a sustainable working life within health and social care has major consequences for Sweden's municipalities and their conditions to fulfill their mission. For my home municipality, it concerns 16.8 million that disappeared already last year, and those funds are conspicuously absent even this year in the minister's budget. It is a very large amount of money for a normal-sized Swedish municipality. It was 16.8 million that was used to finally abolish the split shifts for care staff. They did not cover the entire cost, but together with municipal investments, it could be implemented. Now, however, split shifts have made a comeback due to the government's cuts.
The state grants to the municipalities that the government provides to finance Swedish welfare are far from sufficient. Both regions and municipalities are forced to make cuts. The need is enormous right now. At such a stage, the government chooses to increase the general state grants to the municipalities by 0 kronor this year.
Zero! I cannot help but wonder if it is a deliberate strategy from the government to push the municipalities to the brink of ruin and force them to raise their flat municipal tax to manage to meet the legal requirements while you at the Government Offices come up with the next job tax deduction. It is a rather cynical tax policy.
Will the Minister present any increased state grants to the municipalities to prevent the extensive cuts that the government is forcing the municipalities to implement, especially within elderly care?
Patrik Lundqvist (S)
Madam Speaker! I thank Linnéa Wickman for the interpellation. I also, of course, thank the Minister for the answer.
When one listens to the minister, it is clear that the focus is not on the municipalities' activities. It is not the situation of the elderly or the situation of the staff within elderly care that is the most important for the state to handle, but rather it is the growth policy. Then the municipalities, with the local self-government, are to be responsible for the other. This is, of course, true to some extent. The state does not have control over the activities. But we have in Sweden a municipal equalization system, which aims for all municipalities to be able to manage to deliver, among other things, elderly care to their inhabitants, regardless of whether the activity conducted in the municipality is sustainable and ensures that people move there or instead disappears or is streamlined so that fewer work there and more and more move away from there.
This is a responsibility that is immensely important so that all of Sweden can live, and so that the elderly who have built up Sweden through, for example, forestry in the inland of Norrland or in Gävleborg, where we come from, can manage to stay in their homes in their autumn years where they have built their lives, even though their children might move to Stockholm by compulsion or of their own free will and then take their tax power with them to their new municipality. It is a huge responsibility.
What I read into the Minister's answer is that the current government is indeed investing in growth for some but also investing in decommissioning for others, when instead of distributing the money per individual out to the country to secure the activities and purchasing power that exist all around the country, they distribute the money in general tax cuts after which income people already have. Then more and more money goes to those areas where there is already very much money, and those areas that have begun to be depleted continue to be depleted.
This is not a responsible policy towards the countryside and towards all those people who have built Sweden through the ore, the mines, the forestry industry, the paper mills and all the other things that still remain but which employ fewer and fewer people as the operations are streamlined and can be conducted with fewer people. The State must take its clear responsibility - ensure that these municipalities are not hit by even greater depopulation, ensure that there is a certain purchasing power remaining and ensure that the elderly who have chosen to live their lives there and do what they must also receive the reward they deserve and the care they deserve in the autumn of their lives.
This is, in short, a policy for those who already have and for the metropolitan regions instead of a policy for all of Sweden and the people who live here. I find it difficult to see that this aligns with the words used when describing what one wants to do. It is clear that one can say that the municipalities are generally managing. But that is based on the fact that some are already very wealthy while others are not. The average is used instead of looking at those who are actually affected by this.
We have promised the Swedish people that one shall receive dignified care regardless of where one lives in the country. We must also live up to that. There is more to be done here. I am curious to hear what will be done moving forward, as it does not appear in the answer here.
Sanna Backeskog (S)
Madam Speaker! Thank you to Linnéa Wickman for a very important interpellation, and thank you to the Minister who is here today and discussing elderly care with us.
First of all, I want to highlight the obvious. The elderly are not a homogeneous group, and today's elderly live in a very complex context. Before this debate, I received important input from a unit manager for case officers within municipal elderly care administration. She described an everyday life that involves daily meeting people who are used to managing on their own in an increasingly individualistic society, but who one day need to ask for help and support to manage everyday life.
Each case officer has approximately a hundred cases to handle at a time. These concern former nursing assistants, doctors, self-employed individuals, teachers, and construction workers who, not infrequently in the autumn of their lives, are struck by involuntary loneliness or mental ill-health.
When we politicians make decisions regarding elderly care, perspectives such as mental health, quality of life, and meaningfulness must always be included. This is something that PRO has also repeatedly highlighted. Elderly care must have the ambition to achieve quality of life, rather than merely maintaining a minimum standard. I would like to hear the Minister reason a bit regarding that.
Madam Speaker! Secondly: In order for us to meet the great challenges of the skills supply, it is crucial that those who work in elderly care today enjoy their work, have the energy, want to, and can afford to stay in their jobs.
In Försäkringskassan's situation report Mental health in today's working life, it is described that sick leave due to stress has quintupled. Among those affected, four out of five women are within welfare professions. One explanation is the lack of balance between demands and resources. It is well documented that it is primarily poor working environment that causes stress-related sick leave.
Kommunals' chairperson Malin Ragnegård says in an interview that I think is worth noting: The employers talk about nursing assistants being a shortage occupation. But with this extremely poor working environment, it is rather a risky occupation.
Madam Speaker! I still think it is a bit far-fetched that the Minister, in her response, refers to the municipalities' self-determination when she knows that the municipalities are bound by a tax-cut policy with all too small general government grants.
Försäkringskassan, Socialstyrelsen and Kommunal all clearly and distinctly describe the poor working environment within elderly care. It is, therefore, a national problem. The challenges are great in municipalities governed by both the Moderaterna and the Socialdemokraterna.
SKR has recently presented an action plan where the importance of working with health factors is emphasized, but also skills development and career changes to manage the demographic change. This with health factors is very evidence-based, and it would yield results. But it obviously requires resources.
Madam Speaker! That something must be done is crystal clear. That the care workers, three of whom are women, are so exhausted by stress and poor working conditions is a major scandal and a huge societal failure.
To quote Bianca Kronlöf's brilliant acceptance speech at the Guldbaggegalan recently: It is a shame that you have to fight so often yourselves to have a bearable working condition when it is actually about you taking care of all the rest of us.
What is the government's plan, really, so that more people can manage, want and be able to work in elderly care and be able to contribute to a dignified old age now when our municipalities and regions have been put on a starvation diet?
Statsrådet Anna Tenje (M)
Madam Speaker! I wish that I now had 20-30 opportunities for exchanges of remarks when the commitment from the chamber is finally so great for elderly care. That is what I have waited for for two years. I can only state that it is very pleasing with the commitment that is nevertheless shown here today. I have worked with these issues since day one. I can only state that then as now, elderly care is a question of the future.
Both the number and the proportion of elderly people in Sweden are increasing. We must never forget that precisely that increase, that more and more people are becoming older, is a fantastic success story. We must never diminish that. It is often described as if this were to be a gigantic problem. But it is actually what we have strived for all along.
With that said, it is obvious that it is associated with a number of challenges. It will lead to an increased need for elderly care, an expanded home care service, and an increased number of places in special housing.
Even though we are getting older, we are adding more and more healthy years to our old age. But it still means that at some point in life we will need help and support. Then, of course, a safe and secure care with high quality must be there.
Just as the interpellor, but also several of the members highlight, the competence shortage is indeed a major challenge today. Furthermore, the need for new hires will likely increase in the future. It is required that we already today have a long-term and structural perspective so that we can work towards ensuring a sustainable welfare in the long term moving forward.
Such a perspective requires that we can have several balls in the air at the same time. We need to address all the deficiencies that exist here and now in order to strengthen care and increase the quality. But we also need to have the energy to create the conditions for future care even in the future.
Among the most important things for a sustainable welfare state is how it can be financed here today and also tomorrow. It is very important to emphasize that it is precisely for that reason that the government has carried out a systematic work.
It is primarily a matter of that we, in the pressured economic situation we were in not so long ago, allocated funds where they do the most good. At the same time, we focused on reducing and working away the inflation as quickly as possible. This has the greatest impact precisely on the municipalities' finances.
We won the battle against inflation. It will make the municipalities' finances look significantly brighter in the coming years. In the long term, we also need to boost growth and get more people to move from benefits to work. It is clearly one of the most prioritized areas.
Several of the members here today have been to the mines, the forests, and not least the mines that built Sweden strong and kickstarted growth. But they still do not make the connection that it is precisely growth that must increase in order for the welfare state to be able to be financed in the future.
That is why it is so important that the 2025 budget focuses on strengthening households here and now. But it is also a matter of fighting to increase growth so that we can afford to finance our future welfare together. That would benefit welfare but above all elderly care, both by strengthening the municipalities' finances and by more people moving from benefits to work. More people working more would also facilitate the skills supply within elderly care.
A sustainable elderly care requires the right conditions. It is those conditions that we are now working to create on several levels in order to specifically strengthen elderly care, Madam Speaker.
Linnéa Wickman (S)
Madam Speaker! Thank you, Minister, for the detailed answer!
I note that several of the few measures that the Minister nevertheless mentions the government is taking to improve the situation in elderly care are matters that the previous Social Democratic government has initiated.
I note that Äldreomsorgslyftet is mentioned. It is very important. I think one can mention protected title for nursing assistants and the right to a fixed care contact. These are also examples of important reforms that the government has moved forward.
The fundamental problem today is still, despite the lessons of the pandemic, that the quality improvements and increased ambitions that we initiated cannot be realized without long-term investments that provide the municipalities with real resources so that it is possible to hire more people and improve working conditions so that more people want to stay.
Madam Speaker! The fundamental question in this debate, after all, is the following.
How can the government's policy, where the rich are prioritized, be able to solve the crisis? It is an inefficient policy that will not get any growth moving. I know that the government revised down its own growth forecasts shortly before the turn of the year.
How can this policy, where one abandons the nursing assistants, be able to solve the serious crisis? This is, of course, no new issue. But seen in light of how great the challenges actually are and what the needs look like regarding both the competence supply and the demographic development, the state needs to take its responsibility, which I would say this government does not do.
Kommunal assesses that in order to meet the increasing needs of elderly care, 8,200 more full-time employees would be needed within elderly care every year until 2030, at a total cost of approximately 25 billion kronor. It is an amount that the government could have prioritized, but they do not. What they do instead is to lower taxes by 28 billion kronor just this year.
The Authority for Health and Care Analysis has made a comprehensive forecast regarding the investments required until 2040 to meet the increasing needs that we are discussing in the debate. It appears there that four out of five citizens, i.e., a large majority of all who live and reside in this country, expect that elderly care in 2040 shall meet the population's needs to a greater or at least equal extent as today. At the same time, more than half in the survey and analysis that the authority has prepared state that even if the municipalities carry out different types of improvement work and measures, they will, with today's funding, be able to meet the health and care needs to a lesser extent.
More than 90 percent of the municipalities believe that it is private route services for the pensioners who can afford it that will be part of the solution. More than 60 percent of the municipalities assess it as very or quite likely that it is relatives who will have to step in.
Already today, elderly care is being delayed. One explanation is that the thresholds for support have been raised and that more and more people, especially women, have been forced to reduce their working hours to make up for the shortfall in welfare. But this is not an inevitable development, it is politics. It is about economic policy and how one prioritizes.
Does the minister really mean that it is the family situation and the wallet that should determine what care one receives? Are the country's pensioners to be divided into an A-team and a B-team? It is a betrayal of those who have built this country.
Kristoffer Lindberg (S)
Madam Speaker! I thank the Minister for the debate, but I regret that I cannot get a clear answer to my question regarding more resources.
The Minister speaks about growth. And yes, it is absolutely crucial. But the question is: When will we see the government's policy for growth? I assume that the answer to the question of increased growth is not tax cuts for high-income earners. I have higher expectations of the government than that. So when will we see the growth policy from the government?
All municipalities are affected by the government's insufficient state grants. But municipalities that already have a weaker tax base and among the country's highest tax rates, and which have a greater need for welfare activities, are hit even harder when the government does not compensate for increased costs. I am speaking then primarily about municipalities in rural areas and in sparsely populated areas.
The conditions look very different in the municipalities, but at the same time, all municipalities have the same responsibility to fulfill the legal requirements within welfare services when it concerns, for example, elderly care for their residents.
The question then becomes: What conditions does the minister give the municipalities to succeed with elderly care? We cannot have a government that hides completely behind municipal self-government. Municipal self-government is extremely important, but the minister must still be aware that the municipalities are also dependent on state grants to be able to deliver the elderly care that is part of the social contract that the citizens in this country can expect?
It is clear that the Sweden Democrats and the government do not prioritize Swedish elderly care. And so it can be. One can have different opinions. But it also has consequences, and these are what we see in the municipalities right now. The Minister must, of course, accept that we Social Democrats, who want to ensure the citizens' legitimate expectations regarding what level Swedish elderly care should maintain, will continue to point this out to the government.
Patrik Lundqvist (S)
Madam Speaker! This government is, as said, making an enormous transfer from areas where few people live, where there are low wages and where there is an aging population, to the metropolitan areas, where most people with high incomes live and where very many people live.
It is the consequence of the government using the reform space that exists to lower taxes, especially for those of us in this chamber - those of us who have over 60,000 kronor in monthly income. At the same time, the government allows the municipal equalization to the municipalities to be increased so that they can manage to provide elderly care everywhere.
This is not just a question of care; it is also a question of the labor market. Parallel to this, resources to Arbetsförmedlingen are being reduced all over the country and the work is being centralized and shifted onto fewer case officers who can meet people and provide them with support. They are affected when the municipalities need to lay off care staff who can no longer work in their home municipality. They may also be forced to move from their municipality to a larger municipality where the demand for staff still exists.
This creates a vicious spiral, where the countryside and small towns and what is sometimes called depopulated areas are hit harder and harder, largely due to the state's actions and the government's way of using our common wallet.
I think, for my part, that one would need to do exactly the opposite. It is these areas that need an extra boost, bigger muscles and more economy in order to also create local growth - not just a growth that one can say benefits all of Sweden, but one that also benefits all areas in Sweden.
Sanna Backeskog (S)
Madam Speaker! Another aspect that needs to be raised when we talk about elderly care is the form of operation and what profits in the welfare sector do to our Swedish welfare system.
In my home county of Gävleborg, we are facing a situation where the Moderate and Sweden Democrat regional leadership will decide to corporatize an entire level of healthcare. This concerns the entire primary care. According to their own investigation, this is the first step; they corporatize in order to then be able to sell off all the region's health centers.
We Social Democrats are strongly critical that the region's health centers, with the task of meeting and treating sick people, should be operated for profit. Whose interests will the CEOs represent? Is it the residents' or the owners'? And where will the health centers be placed geographically? Is it fair across the county or where they are most profitable?
Madam Speaker! A corporatization will to the highest degree affect the municipalities, the municipal residents, and the municipal home healthcare. It will affect the areas of cooperation between regional primary care and home healthcare. This also applies, of course, to school health care, the family centers, BVC, MVC, and elderly care.
The risk is imminent that, due to the profit requirement, costs are pushed further down the system by shifting the responsibility onto municipal home healthcare. This decision is purely ideological, and this is a radical policy that will lead to increased administrative costs and to reduced democratic control.
I think it is such an extreme measure that it needs to be discussed at a national level and that the government should consider talking to their party friends in Gävleborg. I would like to hear the minister reason regarding how a total corporatization and sell-off would affect our elderly in need of care in Gävleborg.
Statsrådet Anna Tenje (M)
Madam Speaker! Many questions have been tossed around here. I state that I am uninterested in in what framework things and matters have been conducted - public or independent framework - as long as it is a question of high quality and high availability as well as that the taxpayers get value for their money.
Let me give an example. The management in the social democratically led region here in Stockholm has decided to take back 1177 into public hands, which has made it more expensive and has resulted in poorer accessibility. Older people in particular are caught in the crossfire, given that one has such a time pressure on oneself when describing one's symptoms when calling 1177 that one risks being left completely without care. This definitely endangers life and health.
In other matters, I want to go back to the major question regarding the supply of competence within elderly care. The National Board of Health and Welfare released a report last week. In it, it is clearly stated that there are specific areas that are important to strengthen in order to meet the future's supply of competence. This includes, among other things, investing in competence development and strengthening leadership within elderly care so that the work environment can also become better. More people should be able to, want to, and be able to work more - move from part-time to full-time - and in that way be included in the way the operations are managed and led. But it is also about language skills.
It is a question of areas, Madam Speaker, which I have worked with since day one. Language is completely fundamental, partly so that the elderly can understand and make themselves understood—that is a self-evident matter—partly so that employees can perform their work in a safe manner, and partly so that the social coordination shall function in the workplace so that the work environment shall also become better in that way.
At the same time, we know that a large part of the staff, an estimated quarter, do not speak Swedish well enough to manage their work tasks. This is, Madam Speaker, a reality that has been known for a long time, but the Social Democratic government was unable to handle it last time. It did not act on the issue, but we have. And we are more proactive in these matters.
One of the first investigations I commissioned concerned language requirements in elderly care. I received the investigation back in December, and it is now out for consultation to gather views on the various proposals. The proposals are important in terms of ensuring sufficient language skills, while they also concern helping the many employees to increase their competence or ensuring that the existing employee who does not have sufficient language skills receives the support and help needed to quickly improve their language skills.
Madam Speaker! This is just one example of how we are practically working to increase and strengthen the quality of elderly care. Just as the member mentioned, we have moved forward with the Elderly Care Boost (Äldreomsorgslyftet). We have removed further hurdles so that the municipalities can utilize the funds. I am very keen that this long-awaited government grant reaches many and the right people. We are also drafting a new Social Services Act, and we are adding many important reforms. We increase the support for relatives, strengthen medical competence, and support the important work of using welfare technology within elderly care.
Linnéa Wickman (S)
Madam Speaker! I note that what the Minister least wants to talk about is how we secure the basic funding given the demographic conditions and the current situation within the country's elderly care. My colleagues from Gävleborg have also given various clear examples of how it looks in our county.
The Minister for Finance has said that it should pay to earn 125,000 kronor a month. I think that instead it should pay to perform one of society's absolutely most important jobs, namely to work within health and social care, to take care of us and to take care of our loved ones.
I repeat that the budget for 2025 does not contain any new general state grants to the municipalities. It is clear that it will be challenging if we do not increase resources when the needs increase. Every year, a gradual erosion occurs that results in having less and less money to run operations with.
Then there are individual reforms that we have initiated which are incredibly important, and I share the view that the Swedish language is important. I come myself from a municipality where they have worked hard on how one can work to raise the competence in the Swedish language for those who work within health and care.
I also want to thank the Minister and my colleagues for participating in the debate. These issues should be placed higher on the political agenda, and I truly take it as a call from the Minister that she would like to return so that we can debate the issues from more perspectives than we have managed to today. The Government must create a plan for how we are to meet the growing future needs.
In this speech, Kristoffer Lindberg and Patrik Lundqvist (both S) concurred.
Statsrådet Anna Tenje (M)
Madam Speaker! I would, of course, like to begin by thanking the interpellator and the members for participating in the debate. These are important issues, and I truly appreciate – as I have said before – that there is such a great interest in the chamber today for the questions.
Just as I have explained earlier in my speeches, the government is now implementing a solid reform package for a stronger elderly care. As early as next week, I will present a new dementia strategy, given that it is one of our fastest-growing folk diseases. Age is a risk factor for developing some form of cognitive disease. It is not part of natural aging, but it is an issue that we need to work on - not least within municipalities and regions - in order to create equal care and better dementia care for those affected and their relatives.
In conclusion, I want to emphasize the importance of the municipalities utilizing the support that exists and taking to heart the debate we have had today, the reports that have come from Socialstyrelsen, and the latest figures from SKR and SCB. They show that it is truly urgent that we, here and now, begin working powerfully with the working environment in the municipalities, both in their own management as well as in various healthcare companies.
We need to invest in leadership within elderly care, and we need to move positions forward so that more people can move from part-time to full-time and that more people should feel that this is an incredibly important and meaningful future profession with a longer future than today.
Elderly care will also continue to be an important issue for the future, and I truly look forward to coming here and discussing it on more occasions.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.