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This paper describes how service user involvement at all levels can offer a different route for the provision of good quality care for people experiencing mental distress. Taking examples of service user involvement in the acute solutions project (Sainsbury Centre for Mental Heath, 2006), the paper demonstrates how effective involvement can bring about measurable change in service provision and patient satisfaction. Examining the benefits, barriers to, and practicalities of service user involvement, it is argued that placing involvement at the centre offers solutions to the persistent problems found in mental health services. Workers who value and facilitate effective service user involvement enable social inclusion, change service users' status and enrich their own lives and practice.

Service user involvement has been spoken and written about for many years in a variety of settings, and is generally considered a good thing. A number of elements of service user involvement have been much debated, including the extent to which service users can realistically be involved in shaping services, who counts as a service user, and how service users can be included when the processes involved in commissioning can be complex and technical. This article considers some of the key issues concerning user involvement in strategic and other commissioning arising from research commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. The findings prompt those who are engaged with service user involvement to consider how culture may be as important as, if not more important than, structure when engaging with service users in service design and delivery.

There are many examples of consumer involvement in NHS research but few studies have examined the impact of this on service development or the research process. This study, involving service user and carer researchers working alongside professional researchers, aimed to examine the development of one service user and carer research group in a mental health Trust.

The research involved a review of existing literature on consumer involvement in research, a review of user involvement in research in South West Yorkshire Mental Health NHS Trust, a survey of consumers and NHS staff in the Trust, and a skills audit and training needs analysis of consumers.

The study identified the range and extent of consumer involvement and the impact of this on consumers and the Trust. Service users and carers were involved in a range of projects, mainly on the level of consultation or collaboration. The benefits for consumers were principally on a personal level and included gaining knowledge and experience, improved sense of well‐being, self esteem, and confidence. The benefit for the Trust was in having a service user perspective and focus. However, there is a tendency to omit service users from planning and setting priorities.

The study pointed to the need to build the evidence base on consumer involvement in research, particularly in terms of how consumers can impact on setting research priorities and selecting appropriate methods. It identifies the need for more training for consumers and for NHS staff and for a more coherent strategy.

This article will be of value to anyone who is at the start or in the early stages of their journey of consumer involvement. It identifies some of the practical issues faced by consumers and staff in working collaboratively, but also points to the benefits for all the stakeholders.

The purpose of this paper is to summarise findings of a review of service user and carer involvement in safeguarding and recommendations for good practice.

The study involved a review of selected literature and a consultation exercise with experts in the field of adult safeguarding and telephone interviews with 13 Adult Safeguarding Leads across England and Wales.

Service users value rights, independence, choice and support. Adult Safeguarding policy sets out an expectation of service user involvement in the process and expects agencies to balance rights to self‐determination with properly managed risk. In practice, agencies tend to be risk‐averse and service users often do not feel involved in their safeguarding processes. Processes such as collaborative risk enablement, training and capacity building, working with BME groups and evaluation of involvement help. Good practice examples of involvement in Safeguarding Boards or local forums, developing new methods of user feedback and community involvement were found. Recommendations include more involvement of service users in research, more effective forms of involvement of groups who may be more excluded, shared responsibility for risk, and more training in rights legislation.

The paper offers recommendations for good practice in improving involvement in adult safeguarding, which is a requirement and an essential component of delivering good services to vulnerable adults.

Service user involvement in health and social care is now widespread, but there is little knowledge of how to involve the most vulnerable service users who are in need of protection, or how to balance risk and empowerment. This paper addresses the dilemmas facing Adult Protection staff, summarises the experience of practitioners based on the first decade of adult safeguarding work and sets out guidance for improving practice.

In Britain, the last two decades have seen a considerable increase in focus on service users' involvement in the provision of services that directly affect them, particularly where service users originate from a hard to reach population such as drug users. While the National Treatment Agency and drug and alcohol action teams often extol the virtues of the involvement of drug users in their service provision, participation of this type does not come without problems of its own. Experience of drug user involvement in service provision is much more established in Europe and this article seeks to utilise European examples in illustrating the potential pitfalls of such a strategy. Case studies are examined from three countries: the Netherlands, where drug policy is relatively liberal and drug user groups have been established since the 1970s; Denmark, where drug policy is fairly well balanced between repression and tolerance and drug user groups have been established since the 1990s; and Sweden, where drug policy is relatively repressive and drug user groups are only just emerging. Salient points from these case studies are then used to form the discussion, relating European experiences to the situation in Britain.

The aim is to propose a conceptual framework consisting of research propositions concerning the key strategies required for the successful involvement of customers in the co‐creation of new technology‐based services.

The methodology involves a single case study from which data are derived and analyzed using the grounded theory methodology of “constant comparative analysis.” User‐generated ideas for future mobile phone services are collected from four user involvement projects and analyzed at several workshops attended by senior managers from telecommunications firms.

Seven key strategies are identified as being essential for successful user involvement in new product development. Each strategy is described and illustrated in relation to existing theory and presented as a research proposition.

The exploratory nature of the research means that the findings are tentative and need to be confirmed in other settings by other researchers, including quantitative large‐scale studies.

The results of the study provide management with guidelines for organizing successful user involvement projects with a market‐oriented approach.

Despite the increasing popularity of user involvement, little research has examined the conditions required for successful user involvement in new product development. This study makes an original contribution by proposing strategies critical for a successful outcome.

This paper reports on the evaluation of a scheme to promote service user involvement in the care delivered by a mental health trust. A case study methodology was employed to describe the particularity of the scheme in context as experienced by service users and staff involved in its delivery. Mixed methods of semi‐structured interviews and focus groups created the opportunity for all stakeholders to engage in action research through a mutual learning process about the scheme in operation with a view to making changes to improve and develop it in the future. The qualitative data collected was content analysed and grouped according to key themes, which included the benefits of the scheme, the conditions for it to work successfully, suggested changes, limitations of the scheme, and service user involvement generally in a hospital setting. The role of service users as both paid scheme co‐ordinators and volunteer representatives highlights the contribution that people who use mental health services can play in influencing service delivery when employed in relevant and appropriate roles within a mental health organisation.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of service user and carer involvement in NHS research and describe the nature of this involvement in three specialist mental health Trusts. It also aims to discuss the value of service user and carer involvement and present the perspective of the service user and research manager.

The paper reviews patient and public involvement policy and practice in the NHS and NHS research. It examines the effectiveness of involvement activity and utilises a case example to demonstrate the impact of patient/service user involvement on the NHS and the individuals who take part.

The paper concludes that service user involvement is essential if research is to support the development of health services that clearly reflect the needs of the service user and impact positively on service quality.

Service user involvement is an established element of NHS research and development at both national and local level. The Department of Health strategy for research, Best Research for Best Health, reiterates both the importance of research that benefits the patient and the involvement of the service user in the research process. Despite this, the changes in Department of Health support funding for research, introduced by the strategy, may inadvertently lead to some NHS Trusts experiencing difficulty in resourcing this important activity.

The paper illustrates the effectiveness of successful patient and public involvement in research. It also identifies how involvement has developed in a fragmented and uncoordinated way and how it is threatened by a failure to embed it more consistently in research infrastructure.

Based on the experience of Wiltshire and Swindon Users' Network, this article presents findings from a small user‐controlled study of members' perceptions of their own organisation. Peer support, information provision and speaking with a ‘collective voice’ emerged as key aspects of their involvement which members valued. Although WSUN provided a range of opportunities for involvement in social care and health services, members identified training and recruitment of professionals and presentations as areas for greater involvement. The study calls for greater recognition of the important role that usercontrolled organisations can play in empowering users on a personal level, as well as bringing about change in social care and health services through effective user involvement.