Consumer Rights Directive

(29) Social services have fundamentally distinct features that are reflected in sector-specific legislation, partially at Union level and partially at national level. Social services include, on the one hand, services for particularly disadvantaged or low income persons as well as services for persons and families in need of assistance in carrying out routine, everyday tasks and, on the other hand, services for all people who have a special need for assistance, support, protection or encouragement in a specific life phase. Social services cover, inter alia, services for children and youth, assistance services for families, single parents and older persons, and services for migrants. Social services cover both short-term and long-term care services, for instance services provided by home care services or provided in assisted living facilities and residential homes or housing (‘nursing homes’). Social services include not only those provided by the State at a national, regional or local level by providers mandated by the State or by charities recognised by the State but also those provided by private operators. The provisions of this Directive are not appropriate to social services which should be therefore excluded from its scope.