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Quality reforms in Danish home care – balancing between standardisation and individualisation
Author(s) -
Rostgaard Tine
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
health and social care in the community
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.984
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1365-2524
pISSN - 0966-0410
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2524.2012.01066.x
Subject(s) - transparency (behavior) , politics , public administration , danish , welfare state , modernization theory , new public management , control (management) , quality (philosophy) , business , public economics , public relations , public sector , economics , economic growth , political science , law , philosophy , linguistics , management , epistemology
Despite relatively generous coverage of the over‐65 population, Danish home help services receive regular criticism in the media and public opinion polls. Perhaps as a consequence, reforms of Danish home care policy for senior citizens have placed a strong emphasis on quality since the 1990s. This reform strategy represents a shift from the welfare state modernisation programme of the 1980s, which built mainly on economic strategies of cost‐efficiency and New Public Management principles, including contract management and performance management. Recent reforms have instead attempted to increase the overall quality of care by increasing the transparency at the political, administrative and user levels. However, reforms have revolved around the conflicting principles of standardisation and the individualisation of care provision. This approach has succeeded in increasing the political and administrative control over home help at the expense of the control by users, care workers and case managers.