The participation of adult service users, including older people, in developing social care
Review - Action points
- Use reviews to assess progress, and provide evidence of the changes, have been made as a result of service user participation.
From where I am coming from, [organisations have] got to get their finger out and act, instead of giving it all the talk and no action. Start doing things. Make it work. (Service user)
- Service users must be involved in the review process.
[They] didn’t listen to people and do the job they were meant to do. They were meant to talk to us and find out what we wanted from day services and put us somewhere where we wanted to go. (Service user)
- Reviews should be based upon realistic goals.
Need to be honest, for example, 'this is what we hope to achieve…’ Your views will be fed to [practitioners] in such and such manner’ (Service user)
- Set a clear timescale for measuring change.
[What needs to change is] taking ages to do things they have promised to do, for example talking about setting up a database… and never doing it. (Service user)
- Identify whether changes are needed at individual or strategic levels.
On an individual level, yes, you can see changes. They might put something on tape for me or get it in Braille. But no mass change. (Service user)
- Develop a system for sharing the results within the whole organisation.
When information is fed to managers, systems need to be sorted out to make sure it filters down to the workers. (Service user)
