Privatization of social services: Quality differences in Swedish elderly care

Does the Type of Service Provider Affect User Satisfaction? Public, For-Profit and Nonprofit Kindergartens, Schools and Nursing Homes in Norway

“…A large Swedish study of nursing homes summarised the mixed nature in this research field by suggesting that commercial and public suppliers outperform each other on different quality indicators. Commercial suppliers perform better on certain service indicators, such as user participation in the formulation of care plans, while public suppliers perform better on structural quality (hard indicators), such as the number of employees per resident (Stolt, Blomqvist and Winblad 2011). As this short overview of existing research reveals, it is difficult to develop clear expectations on user satisfaction with public and private providers based on findings from the Norwegian and Nordic context.…”

Local Public Services in Italy: Still Fragmentation

“…Thus, privatisation of care for the elderly in Sweden represents a political shift from not-for-profi t municipal organisations towards for-profi t global venture companies (Stolt et al 2011 ). In this context it should be mentioned that when the 'freedom of choice' policy was launched nationally by the right-wing Alliance government-and described as a reform which would enhance the quality of healthcare for elderly people-it was assumed that there would be a large number of not-for-profi t organisations providing care for the elderly.…”

O impacto da exclusão digital na utilização potencial de um mercado eletrónico de serviços de cuidados de saúde e serviços sociais

“…No entanto, os governos estão a mudar sua abordagem à responsabilidade social e começam a abrir o setor dos serviços de cuidados de saúde e assistência social à iniciativa privada. Em toda a Europa se encontram casos documentados de iniciativas privadas em substituição do setor público na saúde e na assistência social (Blomgren & Sundén, 2008;King et al, 2012;Mandiberg & Warner, 2012;Plomp, 2008;Stolt, Blomqvist & Winblad, 2011).…”