The 37 measures on home-based elderly care that were approved on Nov 30 will be implemented and followed from Feb 1, 2023. This will be the first local regulation regarding this sector in Guangdong Province.

The measures are expected to better satisfy the elderly's demand in home-based care and provide legal support for the high-quality development of the home-based elderly care industry.

These regulations cover areas such as strengthening government departments' responsibilities, regulating the planning and construction of home-based elderly care facilities, optimizing service supply, and deepening the integrated development of medical treatment and rehabilitation.

A working mechanism assigning special personnel for elderly care will be established to deal with the current lack of specialized personnel at the grassroots level. They will take charge of the supply and demand of elderly care services and to help the elderly to adapt to the appropriate services.

An elderly canteen at Wanzai Neighborhood Community [Photo by Zhao Zi / Zhuhai Media Group]

A shared comprehensive evaluation of the abilities of the elderly will be set up and the elderly will be able to access care service without application as information measures will be used to accurately meet their conditions.

Young people, the working adults, and healthy elderly are encouraged to make full use of their spare time to provide necessary services for the older and disabled elderly.

Elderly people from Hong Kong and Macao that are living in Zhuhai with residence permits will also be able to enjoy the basic home-based care service.

It was put forward in the document that more than 55 percent of the local social welfare lottery fund will be used for elderly service.

Home-based elderly service facilities are required to be planned and built together with the residential projects. Older areas and existing residential communities are required to rennovate or develop plans to integrate and follow these new policies in three years following Feb 2, 2023.

An information data base for the elderly will be built to share information such as elderly services, household registration, medical care, and social insurance among neccesary platforms.

In addition, the integrated development of medical and home-based care services will be further promoted.