MADRID, 20 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Platform for the Elderly and Pensioners (PMP), made up of 15,079 associations and more than 5.7 million members, has proposed to the parliamentary groups in Congress an amendment to the General State Budgets (PGE) for 2023 in which it requests the urgent creation of a state telephone service and personalized advice for the elderly, pensioners and those close to retirement.
The president of the PMP, Ángel Rodríguez, explained that the objective of this service, charged to the budget of the National Social Security Institute (INSS), would be to provide users with a more permanent and immediate communication channel to provide information, solve doubts, file claims and carry out procedures with the Social Security with a greater service schedule than the existing information services.
“As is the case with other groups and linked to various problems and social needs, we consider it necessary to have a state telephone service and personalized advice for the elderly, pensioners and those close to retirement. Free, accessible, with speed dial and available to answer to our information needs during extended hours. We are tired of voiceovers and robotic assistance that do not respond to our needs”, argued Rodríguez.
The president of the PMP has argued that Social Security pensions and benefits “are a vital issue”, which cannot be submitted “when you come back tomorrow, nor is everything on the Internet”.
The budget estimated by the platform for the implementation of this service would be 920,000 euros per year, similar to the costs of services of a similar nature already implemented by the General State Administration in other matters, such as numbers 016, 024 or 028) and would go charged to the budget foreseen for the INSS in the year 2023, within the item foreseen for the Information and Personalized Attention program.
The PMP denounces that, after the impact that the pandemic has had on all types of public attention services, there has been “an abrupt digitization process and a considerable decrease in the levels of personalized attention in favor of the use of telematic channels “.
“This circumstance deepens the pre-existing digital gap and generates a situation of exclusion and difficulty in accessing services that especially affects the elderly and elderly people with disabilities”, exposes the PMP.
“We demand the commitment of all parliamentary groups and we call for this amendment to be approved in the framework of the budget debate, as it will be good news for all pensioners,” Rodríguez underlines.
