‘Good Care’ from the perspective of care workers

Background and aims of the study
The Chamber of Labour for Vienna has commissioned the European Centre to undertake an explorative study about how the various categories of professional care workers perceive quality of care. The aims of the study are to identify key-factors of quality in long-term care delivery and potential improvements of working conditions that may hamper or facilitate ‘good care’ in and across the various settings of long-term care provision. 

Methods and tasks

• First, a catalogue of key-issues of ‘good care’ (structures, processes and results of long-term care) will be compiled based on a literature review and explorative interviews with key-stakeholders, i.e. representatives of the various professional groups involved in long-term care for older people.
• Secondly, the catalogue will be discussed during a number of focus groups in the light of contextual factors such as working conditions, organisational issues, education and training as well as governance and financing to create consensus and develop recommendations for improvement.

The empirical results of this study (Summer 2015) will underpin the on-going debates in Austria about long-term care and reforms in vocational education and practice with tangible recommendations for improvement.