Posted: March 29th, 2016

The NHS constitution states that ‘patients must be at the heart of everything we do.’ Discuss how service user involvement helps to ensure quality in healthcare provision.

1.    Introduction to the essay (approximately 100 words) in which you will introduce the topic and state what you will write about in the essay.

2.    This should be followed by a section in which you define quality and briefly discuss why quality matters in healthcare services such as the NHS. (approximately 500 words)

3.    Discuss how service user involvement helps to ensure quality care and contributes to policy development and monitoring. Relate this discussion to your field of practice (Adult, Mental Health or Child field). Child field students please focus on the input of parents as stated in the ‘guidelines for this assessment’ paragraph above. You must support your discussion with evidence from appropriate literature. (approximately 1,700 words)

Some questions you might consider in your discussion include:
•    What is service user (patient, family and carer) involvement designed to achieve?
•    What are the benefits of service user involvement?
•    Are there any challenges involved in implementing service user involvement?
•    How does the multi-professional team work together with service users to make decisions and plan care?