| Abstract [eng] |
This Master‘s thesis focuses on the quality of the services provided for the elderly in care homes in Lithuania by presenting and analysing three quality assurance and management models, including EQUASS, SERVQUAL and CQC; applying the CQC model to reveal the quality of the services provided for the elderly in care homes in Lithuania, in terms of social workers‘ point of view. Research problem is based on the following questions: 1) How clients are invoved in the planning, delivery and evaluation process of the services they receive; 2) How the clients‘ self esteem, independence and choice is being promoted; 3) How clients‘ safety is being ensured and what safety measures are in place to safeguard vulnerable adults from abuse, neglect and possible harm. Object of the research – quality assessment models of social services for the elderly. Aim of the research – to identify the patterns of quality assessment models for the elderly. Subject of the research – evaluation of the quality of the services for the elderly by applying the Care Quality Commission (CQC) quality parameters. scientific literature analysis to reveal the quality assurance and management models and parameters used in the evaluation of the quality of social services for the elderly. using applied content analysis reveal problematic contexts of the social services provided to the elderly. provide recommendations for social workers, organization managers and public authorities of how to improve the quality and safety of the services provided to the elderly in care homes. Participants:12 participants who took part in the study were female, had not less than 3 years of social work experience, they were between the ages of 29 and 54 years old, social work experience ranged from 4 years to 21 years. A total of 12 participants took part in the interview process in Lithuania and 2 in Ukraine. Based on the scientific literature analysis, it can be concluded that the described and analyzed parameters of the service quality assessment and quality management models are different, but they also have similarities with each other. Service user is at the core of the provision of social care services; services are organized around each person individually, taking into account personal needs, wishes, beliefs and service user expectations, providing the best possible quality of services. All discussed models emphasize that the person himself should be involved in the planning, organization and evaluation process of the services provided to them. Values of the organization, role of the care home manager and skilled staff function as a guarantee that the quality of the social care services is high. In order to improve the quality of the services it is important for the organizations to change, adapt, apply innovations and focus on the staff training and development. The role of the external specialists and other parties ensures the effectiveness of social care services. Protection from harm, abuse and neglect was most evident in the CQC model, where these characteristics of the quality of social care services are defined in the separate parameter; whereas, in the EQUASS model, these quality assessment features are only a small part of different parameters (rights and ethics), and in the SERVQUAL model, there is no equivalent to client safety or safeguarding issues in evaluation of the service quality. |
