Within the project InCARE – the Red Cross of North Macedonia (RCNM) will focus on piloting an innovative community-based approach to care for dependent elderly, through the integration of an Emergency Button Service within its home care package.

The piloting of the service will be supported by funding from two international projects. Through the InCARE project, the EU co-funds the piloting of the service primarily for socially-vulnerable categories of citizens, connecting it with its home-care packages and striving to incorporate it in the national social system benefit package. This initiative is implemented in close cooperation with the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy and is receiving co-funding support from the Swiss Development Agency (SDC).

Activities in the InCARE project are complemented by a parallel pilot of the Emergency Button Service financially supported by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA), the Austrian and Swiss Red Cross Societies. The pilot will test a private pay for service model, will develop a business plan and will attempt to estimate the out-of-pocket cost of services without public subsidisation. The two pilots will be run contemporanously, as two mixed modules, in order to evaluate the costs and sustainability of a mixed financing model (partly publicly funded, partly privately funded).

The information gathered will inform on-going discussion on national long-term care legislation on developing a national insurance coverage model with possible support from local municipalities.