Bulgaria long-term care reform rollout

In late July 2026 Bulgaria’s Minister of Labour and Social Policy Nataliya Efremova announced a comprehensive reform of long‑term social services to meet the needs of an ageing population and people with disabilities. The plan called for renovating municipal homes, building around 200 new facilities and expanding home‑based support such as personal assistants and mobile health‑social services, funded through the National Recovery and Resilience Plan and related programmes. By 2025, nine new day‑care and residential services were projected to serve roughly 220 disabled persons, and new legislation introduced criminal liability for unlicensed care providers.

A week later, in early August 2026, Efremova visited Simitli to inaugurate a newly built residential care centre for adults with physical disabilities and dementia in the village of Polena. The centre, financed under the same recovery plan, marked the 15th anniversary of the original family‑type accommodation in the area. The minister highlighted the partnership between state and local authorities and praised Simitli’s municipal leadership for expanding services for the elderly, disabled and people with dementia, illustrating the reform’s first concrete implementation.