u/Fragrant-Tiger1539

Across Europe, up to 40% of scheduled home‑care visits fail to occur, and in cases of provider bankruptcy, the rate can reach 70%.

Despite this, the EU has no common framework for tracking service interruptions or ensuring continuity of essential home‑based long‑term care.

A recent proposal suggests approaching the issue through an infrastructure and reliability lens, rather than a purely social‑policy one. The argument is that home‑care continuity shares characteristics with other regulated infrastructures (energy, transport, digital networks):

it is essential for safety and public health
it depends on uninterrupted service chains
failures can be systemic rather than individual
Member States currently lack interoperable monitoring tools

The proposal outlines:
• timestamped event‑tracking for care delivery
• automatic contingency protocols when a visit is missed
• State‑level redundancy obligations similar to other critical sectors
• harmonised reliability metrics across the Single Market
• a potential framework for State liability when interruptions lead to harm

Full proposal here:
🔗 https://youtime.pro/Proposal-for-an-EU-Framework-Recognizing-Continuity-of-Home-Care-as-Critical-Infrastructure.html

Given the demographic trajectory of the EU and the increasing reliance on home‑based care, the question is whether continuity should be treated as:

a social service (Member State competence),
or a form of critical infrastructure requiring EU‑level reliability standards.

Curious to hear perspectives from this community on feasibility, and whether existing EU instruments could be adapted to this domain.

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