Elderly care policies between vulnerability, solidarity and subsidiarity: the need for a rethinking of the non-self-sufficiency condition in a sustainable way.

The article proposes a reflection on care policies for the dependent elderly people within the Italian national context. The methodology used involves a construction of the paradigm of relational vulnerability and its adaptation to the condition of old age, hypothesizing a renewed face of ‘care’ required by the subject. The authors set out to demonstrate that ‘cure’ and ‘care’ constitute two complementary functions and envisage the overcoming of the rigid dichotomous models related to strictly medical care activities or to taking care. The challenge that the Italian legal system faces is the provision of an effective multilevel intervention to support the dependent person, given that the person’s care needs involve both strictly medical and purely social welfare aspects. For this reason, a legal-normative analysis of current and forthcoming legislation follows, in order to assess whether the organic reform envisaged bythe Enabling act March 23, 2023, no. 33 will be able to achieve an effective and fast coordination and integration of activities to support the non-self-sufficient. In this panorama,the so-called Third Sector assumes a role of indispensable social part, since the specificity ofthe activities required provides particular emphasis on forms of subsidiarity in performance, which require synergistic public-private intervention in a sustainable way.