Enhetschefers arbete inom äldreomsorgen
The aim of the study was to describe how managers at the eldercare system especially in nursing homes work to ensure high quality care. For this purpose, a qualitative method was used in this study and four managers at nursing home have been interviewed. Previous studies have shown that managers in some cases are restricted in their actions and that this may slow down the improvement of the care. At the same time the managers describe their work as demanding and diverse. They have a significant staff responsibility, meaning that they have to ensure the quality of care. In this study, some previous results have been confirmed for example that the managers feel that they have an impact on the quality of care, that managers value their contacts with staff, patients and relative highly and that their main purpose is the quality of care. The data was analyzed using one of many role theories and with different descriptions of leadership. The results show that the managers are working to ensure that the quality of the care is high by ensuring that the staff is competent, participating in development meetings, maintaining good contact with serval actors like staff, patients and relative, providing staff training courses and involving the staff in developing a more productive environment. Therefore, the managers have more impact on how good the quality of the care is than one might think.