Quality improvement in German and UK care homes

This paper reports on data from two linked studies in the UK and Germany which evaluated the potential of a quality management system, Qual A Sess, to play a role in self‐regulation in care homes for older people in the context of calls for EU‐wide harmonization of standards. Qual A Sess was developed by German and UK organisations to assess the quality of care in care homes and mechanisms to improve the quality of care through the development of action plans involving residents, families and staff in the process. This paper compares the outcomes of Qual A Sess in care homes in both countries, by focusing on the data available about the action plans generated by the Qual A Sess process, and suggests that standardization of quality indicators may be inappropriate in the context of local differences.