Quality Assurance Policies and Indicators for Long-Term Care in the European Union

This Policy Brief summarises findings from Work Package (WP) 5 of the ANCIEN project and its three objectives: first, collecting comprehensive information on national quality assurance policies and indicators in LTC systems in 15 EU member states; second, using the collected data to derive a typology of national systems on quality in LTC; and third, producing recommendations at all levels (European, national and local) to improve quality of LTC in Europe. The study has identified four clusters of countries based on the respective quality assurance policies and indicators. Comparing these results with the clusters identified in WP1, gaps between national policies for LTC and quality assurance policies have been identified. Also, some quality issues have been identified and analysed across Europe: professional integration, the quality of informal care, the transparency of quality assessment results, quality monitoring and professional education. This paper provides policy recommendations on these issues.