OREANDA-NEWS. October 04, 2012. The Government will continue to boost all measures for the further development of social protection and services for older people, including war veterans by ensuring compliance with the law to provide benefits and guarantees and other forms of social support. This was started by Deputy Minister of Social Policy Lydia Drozdova at the second All-Ukrainian Forum of veterans.

As you know, about 800,000 war and labor veterans are receiving various types of social services at place of residence through a network of regional centers of social services for pensioners and disabled people living alone of the system of the Ministry of Social Policy. Today 735 such centers operate.

Also in Ukraine there are 74 homes for the elderly and disabled, in which about 9,000 elderly people, including 5.2 thousand war veterans reside on full state expenses. There are 38 assisted living facilities for 8.4 thousand people, where comfortable communal living conditions have been created.

In addition, as reported Lydia Drozdova, there is a new form of social service - providing senior citizens, including war veterans, the disabled with social care services, which provide by unemployed individuals. This helps to bring the services directly to the person. So, last year, about 95 thousand people took advantage of the right to receive these social services.

"In 2011, Ukraine has begun the process of reforming the system of social services. Our goal is to radically increase the quality, in particular through the creation of a competitive market for social services and modernization of the existing infrastructure" - Lydia Drozdova said.

According to her, since March 2012 the reform is in the active phase, due to amendments to some laws of Ukraine. The work is underway to implement a mechanism to identify the needs of the administrative-territorial unit in social services, establishing criteria for providers of social services and the formation of a register. The state standards for social services are also being developed, which will include a description of the content and scope of services, the order of presentation, determine the categories of persons who is granted to and the indicators of quality of service.