Regional differences in nursing: where the help is most urgently missing!

Regional differences in nursing: where the help is most urgently missing!

The need for care in Germany increases dramatically, and a current study shows that there are significant regional differences. According to the scientific institute of the General Local Hospital (AOK), there were the highest proportions of those in need of care in 2023, primarily in East Germany and the federal states of North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse and Saarland. In these regions, between 9.1 and 17.1 percent of the legally insured persons were in need of care, while in cities such as Munich and Freising the numbers were drastically lower - only 3.4 to 3.7 percent were affected there, such as the rbb24 reported. Overall, the number of people in need of care rose from 3.3 million to 5.2 million in 2023 since the introduction of a new concept of care.

Another aspect of the study, which was published in Pflege-Report 2024 , illuminates the enormous variability in Germany. Especially in the five counties with the highest increase in the need for care between 2017 and 2023, an increase of up to 143.8 percent was recorded. While the national average was 57 percent as an increase, the rates remained under 5.7 percent in some regions, especially in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. The researchers emphasize that the increased need for care is not only due to the aging of the population, since in 396 out of 400 counties the actual care prevalence was above the demographically expected values.

care services and regional differences

In addition, the evaluation of care services shows that cash benefits are often used in areas with higher people in need of care, while in parts of East Germany there are rather material and combination services. The data proves that in a large part of the counties in Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate, less than 15.6 percent of the insured use these services. It is sought to plan the care infrastructure precisely, whereby regional factors such as the average age and the proportion of dementia must also be taken into account, according to the head of the care area on Wido, Susann Behrendt.