Luxembourg’s Help Network Provides Over 1m Care Hours in 2024

On Thursday 22 May 2025, the Luxembourg Red Cross’ care and assistance network, Help, presented its Panorama 2024 activity report at a press conference held at the Red Cross headquarters in Luxembourg-Limpertsberg.

Paul Bach, President of Help, presented the network’s key figures and highlights of 2024. He noted that Help employed 1,433 people, an increase of 5% compared to 2023. 1,179 of these employees worked on a full-time basis, the majority being nursing staff (34%), nursing assistants (30%) and home help (16%). 7,525 clients benefited from the network’s assistance during the year. The network provided 1,012,825 care hours, also an increase of 5% compared to 2024. Paul Bach explained that these figures allowed “its clients in need of support, guidance and daily assistance in the health field to have access to a wide range of services adapted to their needs… all thanks to the professionalism and unwavering commitment of the Help teams”.

The association’s main highlights and achievements of 2024 included the initiation of integrated care pathways, such as the RITMe pathway and the Integrated Care for Older People (ICOPE) programme. The RITMe  (Integrated Transsectoral and Multimodal Rehabilitation) system supports each patient throughout their care pathway, from acute care to their return home, including rehabilitation. The ICOPE programme, developed by the World Health Organization (WHO), is a preventive approach that aims to maintain the autonomy of seniors for as long as possible, by coordinating the intervention of different healthcare services and professionals. According to Paul Bach, these pathways “guarantee optimal continuity of care by ensuring effective coordination between all stakeholders, crossing the boundaries between hospital and non-hospital structures to break with the logic of operating in silos, throughout the patient's care pathway”.

The Help network also undertook an accreditation process with the Accreditation Canada International (ACI) tool, an international recognition process designed to evaluate, structure and sustainably improve the quality and safety of the services offered by the network. "A major challenge for all teams that concerns not only the quality of our services, but also our administrative and organisational processes and the management of our resources," explained Paul Bach.

Moreover, Help introduced “Blister packaging”, a system of managing and packaging a client’s medications, in 2024. Through this system, a pharmacy can directly contact doctors or healthcare professionals to discuss any potential pharmacological risks, directly manage prescription renewals and prepare a full blister pack of treatments each week. This has resulted in significant time savings for staff and reduced the risk of medication errors occurring. Speaking of the initiative, Anouck van der Zande, Administrative and Financial Director of the Aid and Care Service of the Luxembourg Red Cross, explained: "While we are heading in the right direction, many efforts still need to be made, particularly regarding the financing of medication management and administration by Social Security, which is still billed to customers today".

In 2024, 1,363 members of staff attended at least one of the 965 training courses provided over a total of 42,040 hours. According to Catherine Gapenne, Director of the Aid and Care Department of the Luxembourg Red Cross, employee training is an "essential means of acquiring or improving skills in order to offer support in line with best practices while enabling greater retention of our teams."

The 2024 Panorama report also reviewed all of the Help network's services, as well as the activities it carried out, including the following:

- the Help network has eight day centres in the Grand Duchy, located in Dudelange, Lorentzweiler, Luxembourg City, Mondorf-les-Bains, Niederanven, Sandweiler, Steinfort and Wasserbillig. In 2024, these centres welcomed 320 people, a 2% increase on 2023 figures and representing a total of 25,455 visits;

- in 2024, 1,383 people participated in the network’s “Clubs Aktiv Plus” programmes, aimed at supporting people over 50 years of age during the transition from working life to retirement, while 923 people participated in Help’s “Activities and Leisure” events;

- in September 2024, following on from its success with the “James B8” emergency call watch, Help launched the “James Galaxy” watch which has real-time geolocation functions that can trace the wearer’s location, no matter where they are;

- 5,117 people also benefited from Help’s Relay Nurse service, described as an essential link in the care pathway, which acts as an interface between the hospital and out-of-hospital environment.

In conclusion, Paul Bach emphasised that the Help network, as a learning organisation seeks continuous improvement: “Over the coming years, we wish to develop our initiatives in care integration and use more new technologies, all in the service of our clients, to enable them to remain at home as long as possible."