Holistic care

Holistic care refers to coherent and comprehensive care and support processes. It includes personal care, practical assistance, and rehabilitation of physical impairments caused by illness, which are not treated in connection with hospitalisation. The aim of holistic care is both rehabilitative and maintenance-oriented.

Personal care may, for example, include assistance or support with bathing, dressing and undressing, and other aspects of personal care. Assistance with necessary household tasks may include help or assis-tance with cleaning, changing bed linen, folding clothes, preparing food, or putting groceries away. Rehabilitation of physical impairments caused by illness unrelated to hospitalisation may be relevant, for example, if you are weakened after prolonged bed rest at home due to an illness like influenza or after a fall, and where there is a need for regaining lost or reduced functional abilities.

The purpose of holistic care is to ensure a holistic approach to your overall life situation. It is up to each municipality to decide how individual care and support programmes under holistic care are structured.

The support you receive as part of your assigned care and support programme is planned and delivered through dialogue between you and the care worker, based on a professional assessment of your current needs and resources. The assistance must be continuous, flexible, and coherent, and involve as few different caregivers in your home as possible.

Holistic care is offered to older individuals who, due to reduced physical, mental, or social capabilities, need help or support in their daily lives. The municipality decides whether you qualify for care based on an assessment of your specific needs.

You can receive holistic care regardless of whether you live alone, with others, in your own home, in shared housing, or in a care home.

You must contact your municipality to apply for holistic care. This can be done, for example, by calling the municipal visitation office.

The municipality will evaluate your situation and based on that decide whether you qualify for assistance. If you are granted holistic care, you will be assigned a care and support programme.

If you are entitled to holistic care, you can also receive assistance while staying in a different municipality than your home municipality, for instance, during a holiday stay at a summer house.

If you are approved for holistic care, the municipality must ensure that you can choose between at least 2 different providers of the care services, one of which can be the municipality itself. The municipality must inform you about your available provider options.

You also have the option of choosing a specific person to deliver the care. This person must meet the municipality’s quality standards and be approved by the municipality, which will make a contract with the individual.

If you are dissatisfied with a specific decision regarding the extent of help provided, or if you have been denied holistic care, you can file a complaint about the decision.

Complaints about decisions or failure to follow procedural rules are handled by the National Social Appeals Board (Ankestyrelsen). However, the municipality must first have the opportunity to review the case and reassess whether it made the correct decision. Therefore, your complaint must initially be submitted to the municipality.

You must file your complaint within 4 weeks of receiving the municipality's decision. After that, the municipality in general has 4 weeks to reassess the case. If the municipality maintains its decision, it will forward your complaint to the National Social Appeals Board.

You can find the regulation for holistic care and the free choice of holistic care in the Danish Elderly Act (ældreloven), §§ 9-12, and § 18:

• The Danish Elderly Act (ældreloven) (in Danish)

You can read more in the official guidance to the Danish Elderly Act: 

• Guidance to the Danish Elderly Act (in Danish)

• The Danish Ministry of Health