The Covid-19 pandemic is a tragedy for those who have been hard hit worldwide. At the same time, it is also a test of concepts and practices of what good care is and requires, and how quality of care can be accounted for. In this paper, we present our Care-Ethical Model of Quality Enquiry (CEMQUE) and apply it to the case of residential care for older people in the Netherlands during the Covid-19 pandemic. Instead of thinking about care in healthcare and social welfare as a set of separate care acts, we think about care as a complex practice of relational caring, crossed by other practices. Instead of thinking about professional caregivers as functionaries obeying external rules, we think about them as practically wise professionals. Instead of thinking about developing external quality criteria and systems, we think about cultivating (self-)reflective quality awareness. Instead of abstracting from societal forces that make care possible but also limit it, we acknowledge them and find ways to deal with them. Based on these critical insights, the CEMQUE model can be helpful to describe, interrogate, evaluate, and improve existing care practices. It has four entries: (i) the care receiver considered from their humanness, (ii) the caregiver considered from their solicitude, (iii) the care facility considered from its habitability and (iv) the societal, institutional and scholarly context considered from the perspective of the good life, justice and decency. The crux is enabling all these different entries with all their different aspects to be taken into account. In Corona times this turns out to be more crucial than ever.

SamenvattingDe zorg in Nederland wordt geconfronteerd met een steeds groter en fijnmaziger geheel aan vooral kwantitatieve management control-methoden en -technieken. In dit essay staat de vraag centraal of en in welke mate deze methoden en technieken passen (of 'matchen') bij de aard van de activiteiten in de zorgsector. Daartoe wordt de specifieke zorgmaatregel van dubbele medicatiecontrole onder de loep genomen. Tenslotte wordt gereflecteerd op de redenen waarom deze kwantitatieve vormen van control worden gehandhaafd (in weerwil van een duidelijke 'mismatch') met behulp van het begrip 'performativiteit'. Relevantie voor de praktijkDit essay is relevant voor managers, stafadviseurs en medewerkers in de zorg en andere organisaties in de publieke sector die ervaren dat de toegenomen eisen van cijfermatige verantwoording en transparantie de mogelijkheden beperken om adequate zorg te geven. Dit is enerzijds omdat alle aandacht voor cijfermatige verantwoording tijd en energie vraagt die ten koste gaat van aandacht voor de cliënt en anderzijds omdat de cijfers geen adequaat beeld geven van de complexe werkelijkheid van alle dag en daardoor als stuurinformatie te kort schieten.

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The Covid-19 pandemic is a tragedy for those who have been hard hit worldwide. At the same time, it is also a test of concepts and practices of what good care is and requires, and how quality of care can be accounted for. In this paper we put our Care-Ethical Model of Quality (CEMQ) to the test. Instead of thinking about care in healthcare and social welfare as a set of separate care acts, we think about care as a complex practice of relational caring, crossed by other practices. Instead of thinking about professional caregivers as functionaries obeying external rules, we think about them as practically wise professionals. Instead of thinking about developing external quality criteria and systems, we think about cultivating (self-)reflective quality awareness. Instead of abstracting from societal forces that make care possible but also limit it, we acknowledge them and find ways to deal with them. Based on these critical insights, the CEMQ model can be helpful to describe, interrogate, evaluate, and improve existing care practices. It has four entries: (i) the care receiver considered from their humanness, (ii) the caregiver considered from their solicitude, (iii) the care facility considered from its habitability and (iv) the societal, institutional and scholarly context considered from the perspective of the good life, justice and decency. The crux is enabling all these different entries with all their different aspects to be taken into account. In Corona times this turns out to be more crucial than ever.