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Nursing home in Berlin: There is generally available information on the quality of the facilities in the capital
Photo: Florian Gaertner / Photothek / Getty Images
When parents or other relatives have to go to the nursing home, it is important for relatives to know that they are in good hands there.
However, according to a study by the Bertelsmann Foundation, there is often a lack of reliable information on whether this is actually the case.
The majority of the federal states therefore do not provide consumers with any information about the quality of nursing homes. Important information such as the deployment of personnel is available in all countries, but remains under lock and key in most of the federal states, criticized the Bertelsmann Foundation when the "White List" was presented. People who are looking for a home are thus withheld information on essential selection criteria.
For the “White List”, the foundation evaluated the regulations of all relevant state laws in the study.
Answers from the federal states were also included - for example, whether personal information is collected and published there.
It also submitted proposals for the “Pflege-TÜV”, through which the core results of quality tests at federal level have been available for a number of years, and it operates a Germany-wide online search for nursing homes.
Four federal states actively provide information
In ten countries, according to the “white list”, data resulting from audits by the supervisory authorities responsible under national law are not published at all. Consumers therefore do not find out whether there is a lack of staff in a home or whether there are serious deficiencies, as the foundation complained about. It is also impossible to understand which institutions are particularly well positioned.
Only North Rhine-Westphalia, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Berlin actively published the results so that they are generally available.
In Baden-Württemberg and Hesse, according to the foundation, the test results must at least be published by the nursing homes themselves.
However, the data can currently only be viewed directly in the facilities, i.e. only accessible to a limited extent - after all, who asks the provider if they are happy to have found a place with them at all?
Laws not implemented
The lack of transparency arises either because there is no state regulation with a publication obligation or because existing laws are not implemented. In Lower Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland, Saxony and Thuringia, publication of the test results is not provided for by law. And the states of Bavaria, Brandenburg, Bremen, Saxony-Anhalt and Schleswig-Holstein do not implement existing laws for various reasons, which is "particularly serious," criticized the Bertelsmann Foundation.
Hamburg stands out positively, where detailed information about temporary admission stops or results from relatives' surveys are posted online.
The most populous federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia is one of the four states in which the results of home examinations are published in such a way that they can also be accessed independently of visiting a facility.
Choosing a nursing home means a life decision, and those affected depend on reliable information, said foundation board member Brigitte Mohn.
It can also be used to make the good work of many nursing staff publicly visible.
"Conversely, however, it should also be possible and permitted to identify the nursing homes where deficits exist."
In order to tackle the patchwork quilt and significant information gaps, all federal states should also disclose the relevant data that are available to the supervisory authorities, said foundation expert Johannes Strotbek.
This could also provide impetus for a quality competition among the institutions.
There is a need for specific legal requirements everywhere, which must then also be implemented.
Consumers, information portals, advice centers and health services research should be able to freely access information on care quality.
At the same time, the foundation pointed out that the pandemic in all federal states had interrupted the on-site operations of the supervisory authorities for months, which is why there were data gaps.
apr / dpa