The Research On Performance Of Government Functions In The Development Of Home-based Elderly Care Services In Changsha

According to the data of China’s seventh national population census,China has entered the aging and will enter a more severe stage of aging.Home-based care service is an essential part and basic guarantee of China’s national strategy to actively respond to population aging.The government plays a key guiding role in the development of home-based care services,so it has strong theoretical and practical significance to study the performance of government in the development of home-based elderly care services.Combining with the welfare pluralism theory and meta-governance theory,this paper argue that the development of home-based care services needs the mutual participation of government,market,society and family.Considering the profit-seeking of the market,the lack of suffi cient development of social organization,the weaken of family support function,government should play a leading role on the basis of mutual participation.Through field research and comparative analysis,it is found that the government of Changsha has do ne a lot of work about planning and policy making,cultivation and support,supervision and implementation,overall coordination and resource integration in the development of home-based care services.However,due to the influence of "GDP first" achieveme nt view,misunderstanding of "small government",low level of policy and resource coordination,information asymmetry,insufficient professionals of civil servants,etc.,there are still some problems in the government’s performance of home-based care services,such as the gap between planning and actual implementation,insufficient attention and support to the cultivation of each participant,poor supervision and implementation effect,internal and external coordination and supply-demand coordination need to be strengthened,and the construction of elderly care service information p latform lags behind.Combining Shanghai’s experiences with Changsha’s reality,there are several suggestions on improving performance of government functions in the development o f home-based elderly care services in Changsha.Firstly,government should have a correct view of achievements and take the development of home-based elderly care services as the content of government performance appraisal.Secondly,government should clarify its function position.Thirdly,information disclosure and communication must be enhanced,it’s also very important that a unified integrated information platform for home-based elderly care services should be constructed.In addition,government can give full play to the role of think tanks to strengthen the government’s capacity to facilitate the develop of home-based elderly care services.Furthermore,a municipal leading institution should be established to improve the overall level of policy making and resource allocation.Diversified funding channels should be developed.Support and training for famil y should be strengthened as well as for the elderly and the home-based care service workers.And all of those measures will push the development of home-based care services to a new level.