Care at home, steps forward in the budget law but national direction, quality standards and true social and health integration are needed
Priorities include the valorisation of the social and accredited private sector as an integral part of the National Health Service and investment in care work and caregivers by guaranteeing protection, training and employment continuity
The approval of the 2026 budget law represents a significant step for the Italian social and health system. In particular, for home care we can finally speak of an exit from the regulatory marginality that for years limited its development and recognition.
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Positive signs emerge in the manoeuvre: integrated home care enters the protected discharge pathways; territorial healthcare is strengthened, also through the role of community pharmacies; care for the non-self-sufficient elderly is brought back to the Leps; a structural fund for family caregivers is created. It is not yet the point of arrival, but it is an important change of direction: care cannot be concentrated only in facilities, it must reach the homes, the territories, the communities.
The role of the territory
The Budget Law 2026 confirms a now-clear orientation: the future of the National Health Service also passes through the territory, continuity of care and the ability to respond in a structural manner to chronicity, fragility and non-self-sufficiency. Integrated home care, protected discharge, telemedicine and prevention become ordinary components of the system, no longer emergency responses. It is a modern vision of healthcare in step with Europe, closer to individuals and communities, capable of reducing avoidable hospitalisation and improving the quality of care.
From theory to practice
But this vision, to become reality, needs clear and consistent operational choices. In fact, there remains a basic criticality that cannot be ignored: the socio-healthcare sector, although recognised as strategic, does not yet have a structural system of resources, planning and governance adequate to the scope of the demographic and social challenges underway. The non-self-sufficient elderly, home care, RSAs and accredited facilities await an organic policy that guarantees sustainability, quality and continuity over time.
Overcoming Fragmentation
The neuralgic problem remains the fragmentation of the health system: a geographical fragmentation, which produces inequalities between regions; and a horizontal fragmentation, with services that do not communicate with each other and discontinuous care paths, in which the citizen ends up moving according to the available offer rather than to real needs.
This is why, encouraged by the favourable signals of the manoeuvre, it is necessary to take a further step. The phase that is opening requires a real implementation agenda, based on certain priorities that can no longer be postponed.
