Event news

20 years ago, it was impossible to think about the interaction between the business sphere and the government. Today we can witness a federal law that allows consumers to choose where and to what extent they want to receive services. "Moreover, tariffs in St. Petersburg today for suppliers included in the register are fair," – said a moderator of the meeting Konstantin Livshits, a founder of the social and medical service "System care". According to Natalia Lemke, a head of the department of the Committee of social policy of St. Petersburg, regardless of the federal legislation, the city on the level of the subject attracted business. "Back in 1999, we wrote and proved that the shift from budget to target financing is necessary: regulatory and target financing will attract business to the social sphere. But then there was no mechanism, now it has appeared. At the beginning of 2019, in St. Petersburg, there are 139 service providers that are included to the register. In 2018, the non-profit sector and business served more than 5 thousand people. All these organizations received 850 million rubles. There are, of course, some problems like the instability risk, the difficulty of predicting the number of services that will be chosen by the consumer.  On the other hand, with the arrival of non-governmental organizations, we create real competition and that is important. In addition, if an investor appears at the facility, we begin to provide services a little earlier."  

Vladimir Maksimov, a deputy chairman of the Committee on social protection of the Leningrad province, shared that non-core services are outsourced in the Leningrad province. "In addition to the guaranteed, the province pays for the additional services, such as hippotherapy, social taxi, nurse services. From next year, the nurse service will be guaranteed, whilst the rest is covered by grants. "Social taxi" obtained a single control room from the last year, categories for free use are determined."

Sergey Zakharov, a deputy director on the social entrepreneurship of charitable foundation Hesed Abraham, spoke about the cooperation between business, NGOs and the state in the development of social service infrastructure on the example of the Kurortny district. "In 2016, the first in Russia private boarding house for the elderly "Kurortny" was built in the village of Pesochny. One of its main meanings is the emergence of a new type of nursing home, with modern service and a new level of comfort. It is planned to increase the number of elderly and disabled people living in such hospitals to 3.7% by 2024. We can see that the services are incredibly in demand, the waiting list in the boarding house has more than 200 people in it. By the way, the government also understands the need for these services. Even at the stage of construction of the project, we successfully interacted with the government: with its support, we received land, and now the city partially pays for the provision of services for the care of wards. We can see that the city is interested in attracting businesses and non-profit organizations."

Konstantin Livshits shared the details of the creation of the social and medical service "Care System": "Our system helps in rehabilitation after a stroke at home, we are also operators of the project "Panic button" and providers of patronage services. The need for joint work between the social sphere and medicine is clear to us. We cooperate with the hospital of war veterans, and that our common task is to create a full range of support. Comprehensiveness means assistance at all stages, depending on the specific needs of each ward, including home rehabilitation and care. We stand for a client-centred approach, and it seems to me that this model will allow to radically change the attitude of our citizens to social services," he says.

According to Alexei Mavrin, a founder and a director general of the network of boarding houses "Opeka", one of the mechanisms for the creation of social infrastructure can be a state-private partnership. "There are 4 roles – a customer, an object, an operator, an investor. The customer can be the state, consumers and relatives, philanthropists and charitable organizations. The operator is a company that provides services. But the main thing is the elderly- our customers.   What the client wants: good living, hygiene, medicine, leisure. And we have to provide it", – the expert says. Now it is important to dissuade everyone that retirements houses are bad.  "In our market segment, the mentality of people prevents development. Many still perceive the provision of social services by private companies as something negative," complains Alexey Mavrin.