“I Want to Tell You Something, but Not Here”: Governmental Inspection teams’ Challenges in Identifying Mistreatment in Nursing Homes

This study explores the challenges faced by the Ministry of Health’s inspection teams in identifying mistreatment within Israeli nursing homes. Four focus groups with 19 multidisciplinary inspectors revealed two main themes. First, the interaction between nursing home management, staff, and inspectors ranged from denial and concealment of mistreatment to cooperation in reporting it. Second, inspectors adapted skills not part of their official duties, such as investigative techniques and organizational analysis, to identify mistreatment. The findings highlight the need to reassess inspection teams’ roles, skills, and their relationship with nursing home staff to improve detection of mistreatment.