Quality assurance practices in care management: a perspective from the United Kingdom

Alongside the development of care management in many countries has emerged a need to monitor the quality of both care management practices, as well as the quality of services provided as a consequence of care planning by care managers. Designing and implementing quality assurance practices in care management present special challenges. This article examines current practices from the perspective of the United Kingdom (UK). First, current performance initiatives at the central government level are described, including an indication of their limitations in judging quality in care management; second, existing work on assuring quality in care management is reviewed along with its relevance for the UK; and third, a local study, identifying measures within an analytical framework and using them to monitor care management against set dimensions, is described. Parallel developments are now occurring at both national and local levels in the UK, with local work both influencing and being informed by national developments. Future issues to address include the problems in collecting relevant data and in extending methods of analysis to monitor care management more comprehensively.