This thematic issue aims to provide an academic response to the growing challenges facing Poland’s long-term care system. A substantial body of research and analysis indicates that the system remains on a trajectory that will lead to further—if not increasingly severe—unmet needs of Poland’s ageing society in terms of care provision for people who have lost, or are losing, functional independence.

Poland has one of the highest population ageing indicators in the European Union. By 2050, the share of people aged 65 and over is expected to increase by 50%, while the number of people aged 80 and over is expected to more than double.

Public authorities and various socio-economic actors undertake initiatives to develop care, health and preventive programmes. Many of these improve the situation of older people with care dependency in specific respects. However, the most persistent problem remains the insufficient supply of care services (both home-based and residential) relative to demand.

Conditions in the Polish long-term care system deviate markedly from standards observed in highly developed countries, as well as in several countries in the region. This concerns, among other things, the level of expenditure on long-term care, the availability of beds in the care sector, the presence of regulations and care standards oriented towards ensuring service quality in facilities, and inequalities in access to care services—both within social assistance and within the health care system.

These disparities are most clearly visible at the county (powiat) level and among residential facilities within the health care system. In Puck County (Pomeranian Voivodeship), 38 people per 100,000 inhabitants used long-term care services, whereas in Głubczyce County (Opole Voivodeship) the figure was 335 per 100,000 inhabitants (Health Needs Map, 2026).

A key feature—and a fundamental weakness—of the current Polish long-term care system is its pronounced fragmentation between the social assistance sector, which provides most services, and a much smaller health care sector. These sectors operate without adequate organisational and financial coordination, while applying different eligibility criteria, financing mechanisms and service delivery models.

Financing of long-term care services

A separate issue concerns the financing of the long-term care system. It seems clear that at the current level of funding, it is not possible to ensure an adequate supply of care places or to diversify forms of care provision.

This gives rise to a dilemma regarding the introduction of new financing sources. Over a decade ago, the introduction of a dedicated long-term care insurance scheme was considered, but ultimately not implemented. To date, financing based on private assets/wealth of care recipients—used in some developed countries—has not been considered in Poland. Such a solution would require in-depth analysis and public debate in order to maintain good relations between children and parents, while ensuring fair cost-sharing that recognises the efforts of those who have accumulated benefits and assets over the life course.

The pricing of care services is another crucial issue. Pricing should be linked to quality assessment, including structural quality, management processes and final outcomes. Care standards are needed; they exist in many parts of the world. In Poland, the current approach to service quality in facilities remains insufficient and does not enable effective public accountability.

Important challenges also arise in the contracting of long-term care services. At present, in most cases (except, for example, specialist nutrition), the National Health Fund (NFZ) does not adequately account for the inputs borne by facilities for patients requiring more intensive care—i.e., when care is more time-consuming (resulting, for instance, from the need for continuous supervision and support with activities of daily living) or more cost-intensive (due to multimorbidity and medical rehabilitation). In many countries, the purchaser pays in proportion to patient categories and the level of care quality, which can positively stimulate the development of the long-term care sector.

Further challenges

In recent years, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in long-term care has also emerged as an important topic—for example, for predicting care outcomes in the context of patients’ prognosis, as well as treatment and care costs. This includes applications in staff education (knowledge updates, onboarding of new employees in the context of high staff turnover, etc.).

Another key issue concerns deinstitutionalisation initiatives in long-term care. These should focus on strengthening community-based care (home-based long-term care, respite care for informal carers, and various forms of semi-residential care). The term “deinstitutionalisation” is sometimes mistakenly understood as an attempt to reduce beds in the care sector (i.e., nursing and care facilities such as ZOL/ZPO and social welfare homes—DPS). In Poland, given the low supply of care, such an interpretation could deepen systemic collapse.

A further challenge is building support systems for informal family carers, who often have to resign from employment in order to care for relatives. These carers are most often women. Insufficient support leads many of them to withdraw from the labour market, ultimately reducing their future pensions.

The Editorial Board welcomes articles based on analytical approaches, empirical research, and case studies. A non-exhaustive list of potential topics includes:

• Planned and implemented reforms in long-term care, their outcomes and lessons learned
• The structure of problems within the long-term care system
• Governance and management solutions aimed at achieving optimal outcomes
• Examples of solutions from other countries and attempts to implement them in Poland
• Instruments for implementing long-term care policy
• Long-term care policy design
• Key lessons from reform projects carried out in EU countries and other world regions
• Ensuring quality of care services in residential facilities and in home-based care
• Quality monitoring systems and linking quality to service pricing
• Market/quasi-market instruments in organising the supply of care services
• Contracting care services on private markets by the NFZ and local governments
• Interactions between central and local government policies in long-term care
• Models of cooperation/coordination between health care and social assistance services
• Inequalities in access to care services (e.g., territorial and group-based)
• The relationship between residential and home-based care
• Models/forms of support for informal carers (organisational, financial, etc.)
• Respite care experiences in Poland
• The role of the family doctor/GP in long-term care
• Long-term care and coordinated care
• The role of geriatricians and other specialists in long-term care
• Long-term care financing systems: between public and private sources
• Models of contracting long-term care services
• Patient categorisation as a basis for contracting long-term care services
• Innovative solutions in long-term care (AI and others)

 

Submission procedure

The deadline for submitting abstract proposals is 10 March 2026, and the deadline for submitting full manuscripts is 29 May 2026.

Topic proposals should be sent to the journal’s Secretary (Dr Klaudia Wolniewicz-Slomka) at: kwolni@sgh.waw.pl.

Completed articles should be submitted to Studia z Polityki Publicznej / Public Policy Studies exclusively via the Open Journal Systems platform:
https://econjournals.sgh.waw.pl/KSzPP/about/submissions

Manuscripts should be prepared in Word format (.docx) and must not exceed 1 publishing sheet (40,000 characters). All submissions undergo double-blind peer review. Articles are published in open access under the CC BY 4.0 license (authors retain copyright). There are no publication fees (submission, editorial processing and publication are free of charge).

Authors are required to use the journal’s article template (available in Polish or English).

The journal is indexed, among others, in: BazEkon, Central and Eastern European Online Library (CEEOL), CrossRef, Google Scholar, Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), ERIH PLUS, Free Journal Network (FJN), Polska Bibliografia Naukowa (PBN), Lens, Dimensions, Scite, Scilit, Baidu Scholar, NAVER, Korea Open Access Platform for Researchers (KOAR), Informationsdienst Politikwissenschaft (POLLUX), International Political Science Abstracts (IPSA), J-Gate, Research Papers in Economics (RePEc), Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE), Gale Academic OneFile, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI).

More information for authors is available on the journal’s website:
http://szpp.sgh.waw.pl