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Provides a summary of a Department of Health funded research study investigating performance and impact of four pilot digital interactive television services in the consumer health field. These were launched in various locations in the UK in 2001. Text and video, interactive and transactional services were featured. Pilots were investigated using a combination of research methods. The four pilots’ performance varied, but overall there was sufficient evidence to suggest that consumer health digital interactive television has a healthy future.

Shared decision making (SDM) prioritises joint deliberation between practitioner and service user, and a respect for service-users’ experiential knowledge, values and preferences. The purpose of this paper is to review the existing literature pertaining to key stakeholders’ attitudes towards SDM in mental health. It examines whether perceived barriers and facilitators differ by group (e.g. service user, psychiatrist, nurse and social worker) and includes views of what facilitates and hinders the process for service users and practitioners.

This review adopts the principles of a qualitative research synthesis. A key word search of research published between 1990 and 2016 was undertaken. Qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods studies were included.

In total, 43 papers were included and several themes identified for service user and practitioner perspectives. Both practitioners and service users see SDM as an ethical imperative, and both groups highlight the need to be flexible in implementing SDM, suggesting it is context dependent. A range of challenges and barriers are presented by both practitioners and service users reflecting complex contextual and cultural features within which interactions in mental health take place. There were qualitative differences in what service users and practitioners describe as preventing or enabling SDM. The differences highlighted point towards different challenges and priorities in SDM for service users and practitioners.

The presentation of nuanced views and attitudes that practitioners and service users hold represent an important and under reported area and offer insight into the reasons for the gap between idealised policy and actual practice of SDM in mental health settings.

Three separate focus groups were conducted to compare the views of service users, carers and specialist health professionals on community services for adults with psychosis and learning disabilities. Participants were asked which staff, treatments or interventions and methods of working or style of service organisation make a significant contribution to helping people with psychosis and learning disabilities. Although there were few direct contradictions or conflicts between the three groups, the priorities of service users, carers and professionals often differed. Development of community services for adults with psychosis and learning disabilities should incorporate the views of service users and their carers as well as clinicians.

The purpose of this paper is to measure service user and staff views of the recovery orientation of three mental health rehabilitation units; two “open” and one “locked”. It identified elements of recovery that were important to service users. It measured the units’ performance on domains of recovery, attending to differences between staff members’ and service users’ perceptions and between the locked and open units.

A cross-sectional design was used. Staff and service users completed the “Developing Recovery Enhancing Environment Measure (DREEM)”.

Findings revealed some differences between staff and service user views. Service users in the locked unit reported the organisational climate to be more recovery oriented on some domains than those in the open units. Service users’ responses highlighted potential areas for service improvement.

The sample was small but reflected the applied setting. Some service users were not invited to participate because of significant communication or cognitive difficulties and it is recognised that they may have had alternative views that remain unrepresented.

The DREEM provided valuable information about current practice and potential for service development. Both locked and open units can provide recovery-oriented environments. Services should be aware of discrepant views between staff and service users.

To the knowledge, this is the first study to use the DREEM to evaluate the recovery orientation of a locked recovery unit and to compare locked and unlocked units.

The purpose of this paper is to present a qualitative analysis of the facilitators of recovery in in-patient psychiatric rehabilitation from the service users’ perspective.

Interviews with 31 in-patients were coded and analysed thematically at an interpretive level using an inductive approach.

The dominant themes identified were hope, agency, relationships and opportunity. Totally, 20 subthemes were identified. Agency was more important to men than women and agency, hope and relationships were all more important to detained patients.

Interview data were collected in writing rather than taped. The results may not be transferrable to patient populations with significantly different demographic or service factors.

Services need to target interventions at the areas identified by service users as important in their recovery. The findings suggest both environmental and relational aspects of care that may optimise recovery. Services also need to be able to measure the quality of the care they provide. A brief, culturally valid and psychometrically assessed instrument for measuring the recovery orientation of services is required.

As far as the authors are aware no qualitative work to date has examined the recovery experiences of psychiatric rehabilitation in-patient service users in order to understand what services require to do to enable recovery from their perspective. The conceptual framework identified in this paper can be used to develop a service user self-report measure of the recovery orientation of services.

This paper aims to capture the views of forensic mental health service users; focusing on how services promote the aspiration to work, the development of skills for work, and the vocational rehabilitation process. It seeks to provide insight into forensic mental health service users' views on the barriers and enablers to accessing work together with suggestions for enhancing practice, and implications for further research.

Ten participants from a range of forensic mental health services throughout Scotland took part in semi‐structured interviews. Participants were involved in either paid work, voluntary work or work preparation. Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) allowed exploration of an individual's lived experiences and how they make sense of this.

Service users valued the opportunity to address vocational issues at the earliest opportunity in their rehabilitation. Work had an overwhelmingly positive impact on mental health. Analysis of interview transcripts revealed three master themes: “Normalising my life”: the positive impact of work; “Gradual steps”: facing barriers; and “Practical help and encouragement”: feeling supported. There is much to gain from good multidisciplinary rehabilitation within secure hospitals and the community, with work playing an important role in recovery and symptom control. Forensic services should focus on employment and the aspiration to work early, demonstrating awareness that attitude and the aspiration to work are a much more reliable indicator of success than diagnosis and mental health symptoms.

Few qualitative studies have investigated service users' views of work within forensic mental health, yet such information can be crucial to enhance and improve service delivery.

This paper discusses the practicalities and limitations of establishing a service user consultation group to guide service developments, based on the evaluation of a podiatry patient panel in South Yorkshire. It describes the specific difficulties in recruiting a representative panel of service users, and the gradual acculturation of the panel from a group of challenging activists to unpaid members of the podiatry department.

The Mental Health Recovery Star (MHRS) has received focus at a national policy level in consideration of outcome measurement within mental health services. The purpose of this paper is to seek the views of mental health professionals about its use within clinical practice.

The paper employed a qualitative, exploratory design to interview 12 participants. Thematic analysis was used.

Four main themes were identified: “the utility of the Recovery Star”; “not for everybody”; “service user involvement”; and “the status of the Recovery Star within the Trust”. A range of factors was found to influence participants’ use of the tool with service users.

The paper involved a small number of participants due to a low response rate. Future research could include larger studies and more detailed exploration of factors identified as limiting the use of the MHRS.

The MHRS is a potentially useful tool but its limitations and the influence of organisational context must be considered as part of any plan to systematically implement its use within services.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study of the views of mental health professionals about the MHRS. As it is professionals who are likely to determine whether and how the tool is used, the paper is seen as a valuable initial investigation.

This paper reports a small pilot study exploring ways that staff providing mental health services experience change. Group discussions focused on the drive toward service user involvement in mental health services. Discussions were held with two teams of professionals and indicate that mental health professionals experience a tension in balancing service user involvement with other dimensions of their roles and identities. Key issues include:• staff as potential, or past, service users themselves• service user involvement as a challenge to professional identities• change as being inherently difficult within ‘stuck’ systems• change as having an emotional, as well as instrumental, effect.Implications for practitioners in engaging with the involvement agenda are discussed, and highlight key issues for workforce training.

Commissioned as part of a Joseph Rowntree Foundation scoping programme, this consultation aims to explore the views of disabled people and service users about risk.

The consultation reached nine individuals and one focus group, reaching a total of 17 disabled people and service users. Their views were supplemented by the literature.

The landscape of risk and rights is highly complex. Disabled people and service users have quite different concerns about risk to those of the professionals and the regulatory bodies acting on their behalf. Many people talked of the fear of losing their independence, of asserting their rights and the fear of powerlessness in the face of bureaucracy and (sometimes) uncaring staff.

The profile of rights needs to be raised in an accessible and acceptable way: it is necessary to make the language of rights more commonplace. There is a particular need to reach into mental health and residential care services to find ways of enabling people to have their rights realised. The report has implications for risk assessment and risk management as well as for the regulatory bodies responsible in adult social care. Raising awareness among professionals and policy makers about the risks that service users themselves fear and experience should demonstrate just how important it is that the people whose risk is under consideration are involved in the process.

This paper highlights the views of users of adult social care about risk; their views have rarely been documented.