Background: This article presents a set of quality characteristics of clinical ethics support (CES) in the Netherlands.Methods: The quality characteristics were developed with a large group of stakeholders working with CES, participating in the Dutch Network for Clinical Ethics Support (NEON).Results: The quality characteristics concern the following domains: (1) goals of CES, (2) methods of CES, (3) competences of CES practitioners, and (4) implementation of CES. Conclusions: We discuss suggestions for how to use the quality characteristics, discuss some aspects that stand out about these quality characteristics, and reflect on the method and the status of the quality characteristics. The quality characteristics are meant as a heuristic instrument, helping CES practitioners to explore and improve the quality of CES in a health care organization, but at the same time they can be improved based on experiences during their application to CES practices.
Keywords: Health policy; clinical ethics; medical ethics; professional ethics.