Improving Quality of Life for Older People in Long-Stay Care ...

this regard. The Council believes that specific guidance and training isnecessary to enable long-stay care staff to develop and produce qualityassurance statements and policies, and would be pleased to assist in thisregard as approriate.Training for ConsultationThe research has demonstrated the importance of consulting with residents inorder to ensure that their physical, mental, social, spiritual and emotional needsare being met. The Council believes that residents are in the most appropriateposition to inform service planning and development that improve their qualityof life. In addition, the effectiveness of these services should be judged by howwell they meet the stated needs of the residents; consultation is, therefore,a key requirement of any quality assurance mechanism.Many service providers rely on patient satisfaction assessments as a meansof fostering resident involvement in the development and evaluation of services.However, there are limitations to this approach. It has been reported that olderpeople, in particular, are reluctant to criticise care provision and such assessmentsprovide little information about a older person’s role in decision-making andinvolvement. The Council reiterates its recommendation for the adoption ofa democratic approach to consumer consultation in which older people takean active role in all decision-making processes, including how services areplanned, structured or provided (Garavan et al., 2001; NCAOP, 2005). Thedevelopment of standards relating to the establishment of resident committeesand family committees in all long-stay care services would be welcome in thisregard. Furthermore, in the absence of relatives who can act as advocates onbehalf of more dependent residents, advocacy groups should be encouraged tooffer their services to long-stay care residents.23However, other research has noted that a lack of training may also mitigate againsteffective consultation irrespective of the model chosen (Delaney et al., 2002).Therefore, the Council recommends that training for age friendly long-staycare services should include training in effective consultation. The Councilbelieves that the research findings are a valuable tool in this regard as theyprovide key pointers regarding the subject matter for any consultationexercises and, as such, should form an integral component of such training.