Best practice and the regulation of quality of care for older people
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Incorporating best practice and excellence into the regulation of quality of long-term care for older people: a comparative study of government approaches in residential care in England and Australia
IRAS ID
165181
Contact name
Lisa Trigg
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
London School of Economics and Political Science
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 0 months, 31 days
Research summary
Governments have found it difficult to encourage providers of long-term care* to improve care quality. Many approaches have been tried, but it is not clear which are the most effective. These approaches include conducting inspections, encouraging competition between companies and publishing performance data and star ratings. Many of these are used to make sure that providers deliver basic levels of care.
The purpose of this study is to look at what governments can do to encourage providers to deliver care which is better than just the basic level of quality. Sometimes this is described as 'excellent' care, or as 'best practice'. The study will look at the different ways governments might be able to influence quality improvement and which approaches might be most successful.
To do this, the research will compare the approaches taken by the governments of England and Australia. The long-term care systems in these two countries have a lot in common, but the governments have taken different approaches to promoting best practice.
Interviews will be conducted with professionals in both England and Australia. This will include people who work (or have worked) in government roles or in care providers, who do research about long-term care, and people who represent service users, their carers and professionals. The study will also use information from reports and government documents.* The term ‘long-term care' is used as an umbrella term for the broad range of personal and nursing services available to older people in home and community and residential care settings. Within England this translates to services delivered under the banner of ‘social care'.
REC name
Social Care REC
REC reference
14/IEC08/1021
Date of REC Opinion
17 Nov 2014
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion