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It has proved useful in studies of the personal social services, and in other areas of social policy, to make a distinction between final and intermediate outputs. Final outputs measure changes in individual client well‐being compared with changes in well‐being in the absence of a caring intervention. In other words, final outputs measure the degree of success of a service or a care unit in meeting its client‐level policy objectives, where due consideration is paid to client states had care not been available. In contrast, intermediate outputs are operationally defined in terms of the care services themselves rather than the effects of these services on clients.

Reports on research involving eight residential/nursing homes from six different organizations of various sizes. Face‐to‐face interviews were conducted with both the residents and staff in each of the homes. Answers were then matched to see whether the two groups concurred in their opinion about the “good” and “bad” elements of the service. Found that there was a high degree of correlation, since front‐line staff were, in general, acutely aware of their clients’ needs. The parent organization was also assessed and comparisons made to see which type of strategy was best suited to creating a quality service.

The purpose of this paper is to explore perceptions, perspectives and meaning of quality of life for a sample of older residents, care staff and family caregivers in two nursing homes in Lebanon.

A classic grounded theory study was conducted between 2010 and 2011 in two nursing homes in Beirut. The semi-structured interviews were undertaken with a theoretical sample of 20 residents, 8 family caregivers and 11 staff. The constant comparative method was used to analyze the data.

Three distinct but interrelated properties of quality of life emerged from this process: “maintaining self,” “maintaining identity” and “maintaining continuity”. The dynamics that exist within and between each of these properties provide an indicator about shared and distinct meanings and the implications for care practice.

The study was conducted in one city in Lebanon; accordingly, the transferability of findings may be challenging.

Implications for nursing and nursing policy – improving Lebanese national standards and regulations applicable to nursing home residents may help to enhance residents’ care needs and quality of life.

There was limited guidance aimed at helping older residents to voice and increase their choice and control.

This paper provides new insights into the process of outlining the properties attached to the phenomenon of quality of life in nursing homes in Lebanon. It will be of interest to those in nursing home care as well as to policy makers.

A growing ageing population with complex healthcare needs is a challenge to the organisation of healthcare support for older people residing in care homes. The lack of specialised healthcare support for care home residents has resulted in poorer outcomes, compared with community-dwelling older people. However, little is known about the forms, staff mix, organisation and delivery of such services for residents’ physical healthcare needs. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This systematic review, following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines, aimed to provide an overview of the range of healthcare services delivered to care homes and to identify core features of variation in their organisation, activities and responsibilities. The eligibility criteria for studies were services designed to address the physical healthcare needs of older people, permanently residing in care homes, with or without nursing. To search the literature, terms relating to care homes, healthcare and older people, across ten electronic databases were used. The quality of service descriptions was appraised using a rating tool designed for the study. The evidence was synthesised, by means of a narrative summary, according to key areas of variation, into models of healthcare support with examples of their relative effectiveness.

In total, 84 studies, covering 74 interventions, identified a diverse range of specialist healthcare support services, suggesting a wide variety of ways of delivering healthcare support to care homes. These fell within five models: assessment – no consultant; assessment with consultant; assessment/management – no consultant; assessment/management with consultant; and training and support. The predominant model offered a combination of assessment and management. Overall, there was a lack of detail in the data, making judgements of relative effectiveness difficult. Recommendations for future research include the need for clearer descriptions of interventions and particularly of data on resident-level costs and effectiveness, as well as better explanations of how services are implemented (review registration: PROSPERO CRD42017081161).

There is considerable debate about the best means of providing healthcare to older people in care homes. A number of specialist initiatives have developed and this review seeks to bring these together in a comparative approach deriving models of care of value to policy makers and commissioners.

This study aims to explore the experiences of residents and staff with new restaurant‐style meal provision in four residential care homes in Norfolk, England.

Meal and drink provision were observed over a full day in each home and unstructured individual interviews with 16 residents and 32 staff recorded and transcribed. Content analysis was used to discover and explore main themes.

Although older care home residents enjoyed the restaurant experience, they valued stable table companions more highly than flexibility. Residents appreciated attractive surroundings, good food and their ability to make choices, but in some circumstances and for frailer residents, choice was more limited with care staff making some decisions. While the central restaurant was valued for the main meal some residents indicated they preferred smaller “family‐type” dining for other meals. Care staff sometimes found the negotiation of their waitressing and caring roles difficult. Available space and the dining‐room's location also contributed to the comparative success of the restaurant‐style provision.

Residents valued the restaurant experience with attractive food, surroundings and the ethos of being served at lunch time, but other residents or the same residents at other meals, valued cosier stable family‐type dining more highly. Staff were also torn between service roles implied by restaurant settings and supporting residents to remain independent in the domestic model.

When planning new eating facilities thought needs to be given to ensuring both restaurant and family‐type food provision are available, and staff roles in these settings discussed and negotiated.

The research provides insights into the experiences of residents and staff of new dining facilities.

The problems of providing high-quality care in nursing homes have been extensively documented. Accounts of residents, close family members, and qualitative researchers have described feelings of desperation, anomie, and hopelessness, which accompany the last years, months and days of those reluctantly finding themselves in institutional facilities at the end of their days. However sociologists have, thus far, paid little attention to the actual and potential impact of families in breaking through the barriers set up by institutional life and in enhancing the responsiveness of care in nursing homes. This chapter aims to fill this gap.

In 2004, the author carried out a small scale study to find out the views of those living and working in private care homes in England about a range of issues connected to inspection, regulation and ways to better protect older people. This study reports on views from 19 managers and 19 residents about their understanding of abuse, their perceptions of the different forms of abuse and the possible action to deal with offending care staff. Although there was some consensus about the seriousness of certain types of abuse and how managers would investigate the allegation, the findings indicate that mandatory training for registered care home owners and managers is necessary to clarify their responsibilities in relation to their actions and the reporting of certain offences to relevant agencies. Residents' views also need to be taken seriously if they are to voice their opinions about life in a care home.

The purpose of this paper is to review and discuss evidence of good practice in respecting care home residents’ right to privacy. The right to privacy is a fundamental human right as enshrined in international and domestic law and standards. In the context of increasing interest in using a human rights approach to social care in care homes for older people, this literature review summarises research evidence on what respecting the human right to privacy of care home residents entails in practice.

This literature review followed a rigorous systematic approach to the scoping review, inspired by the Joanna Biggs Institute’s guidelines for conducting systematic reviews. A total of 12 articles were included in the review.

The research took a multidimensional understanding of privacy in their studies. The dimensions can be categorised as physical, inter-relational or related to personal data. The review highlights three good practice points. First, it is good privacy practice in care homes to make available single-occupancy bedrooms to residents since this offers the opportunity to personalising this physical space with furniture and web belongings, adding a sense of ownership over the space. Second, residents appreciate being able to choose when and how they spend their time in their own bedrooms. Third, it is good practice to respect residents’ private physical space and private choices, for example by knocking on doors before entering or agreeing with the resident when it is permissible to enter. The review also found that in some studies privacy considerations were relevant to communal living areas within care homes, including the use of surveillance cameras and the sharing of personal data.

This literature review adds to the body of academic literature on human rights and social care in practice. It also highlights areas for future research relating to the right to privacy in care homes.

A three‐year in‐depth study has examined three models to improvecare in residential homes for older people in England. The study showed that each aimed to provide a ‘home for life’ for residents. Using multi‐source data gained from a range of qualitative and quantitative methods involving residential home managers, care staff and extensive review of documentation related to key care functions, inhibitors and enhancers to the achievement of this aim were identified. Inhibitors were lack of available top‐up funding to meet increased care needs, care staff's inadequate knowledge of behaviour‐disordered residents, workload, cross‐sector barriers and environmental problems. Among the enhancers were flexible regulation, up‐skilling of care staff, care staff's achievement in palliative care, perceived avoidance of hospital admission, and sound practice‐led relationships with nurses. The implications for practice are of relevance to policy makers, educators, community health and social care professionals, and older residents, their relatives and representative organisations.