Objective To identify cognition, willingness and needs for community embedded elderly care services from the perspective of the elderly, and to provide reference for improving this elderly care model. Methods Semi-structured interviews were conducted among 12 elderly people from 6 communities in Wuhan, then data were analyzed to identify themes. Results Three themes and six sub-themes were determined: lack of awareness of community embedded elderly care services; willingness to elderly care services (aging in place, living in community elder-care institutions according to self-care ability, and living in commercial elder-care institutions); and needs for elderly care services (home services, institutional care services and day care services). Conclusion The elderly have a low awareness of community embedded elderly care services, and their needs for elder-care are diversified. The administrative departments should devote more efforts to propagating,perfect the related policies and regulations, and promote stan-dardization of elderly care services and construction of talent teams, so as to promote healthy development of this model.