What is the role of a hospital service user's representative scheme for promoting service user involvement in mental health care delivery?
| Pages | 12-22 |
| Date | 01 June 2007 |
| Published date | 01 June 2007 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/17556228200700003 |
| Author | Steve Haswell,Diane Bailey |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care |
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What is the role of a hospital service
user’s representative scheme for
promoting service user involvement in
mental health care delivery?
Abstract
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.
Key words
service user involvement; mental health;
representation
Introduction
From the 1970s onwards, mental health service users in
England have engaged in collective action to develop
alternative ways of thinking about their lives and to achieve
change in the way that services are planned and delivered.
Since the establishment of community health councils
in 1973, service user involvement has featured as a more
central element of NHS policy (Campbell, 2001). In 1990,
the NHS and Community Care Act was the first piece of
UK legislation to establish a formal requirement for user
involvement in service planning, and since 1997 ‘patient
and public involvement’ in health care has been stated as
one of the central elements of Labour’s NHS
modernisation agenda (Telford & Faulkner, 2004). This
agenda has been formalised in mental health through
subsequent policies such as the National Service
Framework, which sets out as a key principle, that service
users and their carers should be involved in the planning
and deliveryof care (DoH, 1999, p4). In 2000 the NHS
Plan emphasised a commitment to creating a patient-
centred NHS with service users’ needs central to service
design and delivery.Further,The Health and Social Care
Act (DoH, 2001) required all NHS organisations to engage
with users in service planning and evaluation as well as
providing opportunities for making decisions about
treatment options, thus as Campbell (2001, p87) states,
‘The debate surrounding service user involvement
seems to have moved some way beyond arguments
about whether users have a right to be involved or
have anything at all useful to contribute to issues
about the how, when and where of involvement’.
Mental health research projects seeking to respond to
the above political agenda reveals that there is confusion
about the meaning and purpose of the term service user
involvement, together with little evidence of power
sharing and limited commitment of resources (Campbell,
Steve Haswell, Social Worker, Newcastle Outer West Community Mental Health Team, Newcastle General Hospital
Diane Bailey, Reader in Social Work, School of Applied Social Sciences, University of Durham
The Journal of Mental Health Workforce Development Volume 2 Issue 1 June 2007 © Pavilion Journals (Brighton) Ltd
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