Book Review: Guidebook for Users Involved in the NHS and Social Care
| Date | 01 March 2004 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/13619322200400010 |
| Published date | 01 March 2004 |
| Pages | 41-41 |
| Author | Liz Main |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care |
Book review
Guidebook for Users Involved in the NHS and
Social Care
Brad Kress
Essex: Crest, 2003
ISBN 0 9538024 2 6
nder the Health and Social Care Act
2001, health trusts and local authorities have a
statutory duty to consult with and involve patients and
the public in improving services, but service users are
not always told how to do that. This book does not tell
you how to get involved, but it is a useful map to a
system that can be complex and difficult to follow.
Unfortunately, like the health service, the
guidebook is not always easy to navigate. The tiny
typeface makes it difficult to read and it is not always
easy to find quickly what you need to know. The
reference index consists of long strings of page
numbers against individual topics with no further
signposting – looking up ‘mental health’ sent me to 24
different pages but did not reveal there was a ‘route
map’ section to guide me through the subject. The
route map turned out to be a summary of the National
Service Framework, a useful précis of some areas for
service user and carer involvement including research
and development, but giving no specific advice on
how to use the NSF to get involved in shaping
services.
Starting from the front of the book is easier, with a
simple index laying out the structure. After dealing
with the basics we are taken through the main
locations of decision making and then through the
structure of policy making and finance. Perhaps the
most useful sections are the location guides that
explain the roles of groups ranging from strategic
health authorities to regulators, social care trusts and
health professionals. The author has faced a
monumental task pulling together information from a
wide variety of sources, but at times relies on restating
Udocuments so that a lot of information is given with
little interpretation. It is particularly annoying to be
told what services were required to do by April 2000
(the book was published in 2003) when you want to
know if this has been done and whether it is working.
On occasion I found the book a bit ‘preachy’.
Under the heading ‘The informed patient’ readers are
told not to visit their GP for medication for flu-type
symptoms but are not given practical information on
how to exercise choice at an individual level other
than how to complain. However, on other occasions I
did find useful the explanations of the limitations
governing user involvement, such as existing policy
and finance issues.
Once I had located and book-marked the
glossaries, they proved very useful. There is a
comprehensive but difficult to find and read glossary
in an early chapter. Further short glossaries are
included in some but not all chapters in a clearer
typeface. But I suspect it is for the glossary that I will
continue to reach for this book.
As a whole, the guidebook is useful for people
already involved in user groups who want to know
their rights and want to know exactly what various
health bodies do and how they interconnect. It is great
for explaining the language and acronyms used in the
health service, and for setting out the regulatory and
structural framework in simple terms. But it did not
inspire me to get involved – if anything, I became
daunted by the complexities of the system – and it did
not tell me how to take a first step towards
involvement.
Liz Main
Mental Health Service User and Consultant
The Mental Health Review Volume 9 Issue 1 March 2004 ©Pavilion Publishing (Brighton) 2004 41
J/205/01/04MHR9.1Marchinsides 3/3/04 10:33 am Page 41
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