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Dignity and well-being are key aspects of the legislation and policies that regulate care of older persons worldwide. In addition, care of older persons should be person-centred. Dignity and well-being are described as results of person-centred care (PCC). The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of important aspects for older persons to experience dignity and well-being in residential care facilities (RCFs).

This study had a qualitative approach, and individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 older persons living in RCFs. Data were analysed using inductive content analysis.

To experience dignity and well-being older persons emphasized the importance of preserving their identity. To do this, it was important to be able to manage daily life, to gain support and influence and to belong to a social context. However, the findings indicate a need for improvements.

Insights into older persons’ experiences of important aspects for experiencing dignity and well-being in RCFs can be used by first-line managers and registered nurses when designing improvement strategies to promote PCC.

Dignity and well-being are described as results of PCC. The findings provide an understanding of what older persons perceive as important for experiencing dignity and well-being in RCFs. The findings are useful when designing improvement strategies to promote PCC.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically explore and conceptualize how healthcare professionals and managers give shape to the increasing call for compassionate care as an alternative for system-based quality management systems. The research demonstrates how quality rebels craft deviant practices of good care and how they account for them.

Ethnographic research was conducted in three Dutch hospitals, studying clinical groups that were identified as deviant: a nursing ward for infectious diseases, a mother–child department and a dialysis department. The research includes over 120 h of observation, 41 semi-structured interviews and 2 focus groups.

The research shows that rebels’ quality practices are an emerging set of collaborative activities to improving healthcare and meeting (individual) patient needs. They conduct “contexting work” to achieve their quality aims by expanding their normative work to outside domains. As rebels deviate from hospital policies, they are sometimes forced to act “under the radar” causing the risk of groupthink and may undermine the aim of public accounting.

The research shows that in order to come to more compassionate forms of care, organizations should allow for more heterogeneity accompanied with ongoing dialogue(s) on what good care yields as this may differ between specific fields or locations.

This is the first study introducing quality rebels as a concept to understanding social deviance in the everyday practices of doing compassionate and good care.