Involving Service Users Toolkit

Provides a toolkit to assist professional staff, policy makers and service user groups on how to involve service users in drug and alcohol services. Service user involvement is an essential component of healthcare provision today. NHS and social care services are required to seek views from service users about the individual care and services that they receive. Involvement also includes consultation and participation of service users in service planning, operational and strategic change. It is acknowledged that not everyone attending our services will want to participate in decision making processes and shaping policies and strategies. However it is necessary to involve those who wish to participate and to establish mechanisms to provide information to all service users about service delivery issues. In Croydon, the co-ordination of service user involvement at all levels has been undertaken through the Drug and Alcohol Action Team (DAAT). In 2004 a sub group of the Drug and Alcohol Reference Group (DARG) was set up to focus on the service user involvement and to establish a universal approach across all services. This group is called the Service User Representation Group (SURG) and it provides a steer on service user involvement issues and feeds into the DAAT structures. The SURG has established it owns terms of reference and meets at least quarterly and produces an annual work plan in line with the DAAT treatment plan. It is a group that steers service user involvement issues in Croydon and comprises of representatives from the statutory and non statutory alcohol and drug health and social care services. It includes in its membership service users who either nominated themselves or are nominated by the services to participate in the wider strategic issues. These individuals are recognised as key members of the group and are recruited as Service User Representatives (SUReps). Each individual SURep is aligned with one of the services and is allocated a service mentor who is one of the staff members of that service providing support and guidance. The Group is chaired by one of the DAAT staff members. The SURG has designed and produced a toolkit for all alcohol and drug services which is a guide on "how to involve service users". This toolkit is available from the DAAT. It sets out the key principles to involving service users and provides a framework which all the services in Croydon have signed up to. The idea of the toolkit was to provide a systematic and universal approach to service user involvement across all services. This leaflet provides a summary of the approach. What is meant by service user involvement? The toolkit describes service user involvement in three ways, individual; service; and strategic. On an individual level, staff in the alcohol and drug services are responsible for seeking the views of those attending services about their individual care and the services they receive. Each service is responsible for planning user-friendly methods in obtaining information on individual care and treatment and the services received. Examples might include a one-to-one or group discussions at induction to the service and on exit/discharge from the service and comments/suggestions boxes. At the service level, the alcohol and drug services are responsible for consulting with those who attend the services on service issues. This may be on an individual basis or in groups. It is recommended that services consult service users regularly on issues such as: The therapeutic programme; Opening times; Waiting times; Information for service users; Organisational changes, such as refurbishment, new locations, new initiatives; and Unmet needs. At the service level, services are encouraged to involve service users in service planning and management groups and on interview panels. At this level, service users may be invited to discussion and focus groups or workshops to share views and ideas. This should be an integral part of the therapeutic programme. At a strategic level each service will be recruiting Service User Representatives (SUReps) who will become members of the SURG and who will participate in the work plan of the SURG. They will focus on being involved in issues such as shaping policies and strategies, as well as decision making processes with the wider stakeholders on the planning, delivery and monitoring of services. At this level SUReps may get involved in a number of activities as part of the SURG work plan, which might include: attending sector wide meetings; consultation on the annual treatment plan; meeting with other service users to seek views on services and identifying unmet needs; talking to other services and community groups on service user involvement; encouraging service users to get involved and give their views in order to improve services; and participate in specific time limited projects which will advance the delivery of quality services within the DAAT plan. SUReps may also provide support to the services, by meeting with service users to support staff in service level issues. SUReps are paid by the services on behalf of the DAAT for their contribution and participation at a strategic level. Each SURep is formally invited to attend one the DAAT groups and representatives of the SUReps or SURG attend the DARG and DAAT meetings as invited to provide a progress report on activities. How are the services involving service users? Each of the alcohol and drug services are responsible for setting in place a plan for seeking the views of services users on their individual care and services that they receive. They are also responsible for outlining in what way they will involve and consult with service users on the service related issues. How can I feed my ideas into the SURG? All suggestions and ideas or concerns are welcomed. These should be directed to SURG at the DAAT office. How can I contact a SURep to come and talk to my service or staff? If you would like to invite one of the SUReps to your service or meeting we would ask that you complete a request form which can be obtained from the DAAT office where it is to be returned, so that your request can be matched up with a SURep. It is helpful to provide as much notice as possible, but if late requests are made, the SURG will do its best to accommodate them. Can I attend one of your SURG meetings? SURG welcomes anyone involved with alcohol and drug services in Croydon to observe its work. We would request that non members of the SURG contact the DAAT office to arrange this, so that we don't have too many visitors all attending at the same time. What does this mean to me if a SURep attends my service or meeting? If your service or meeting has invited a SURep to attend/visit we would recommend that you and the SURep are clear about the purpose of the visit and what is expected. For example if you are chairing a meeting, you may wish to ask other members to avoid the use of jargon and to summarise points raised, so the SURep doesn't feel alienated. It would also be important for you as the host to arrange for someone to meet and greet the SURep and provide a general orientation to the building, fire exists, location of toilets etc. Who do I direct my other questions to? Hopefully the toolkit will answer any queries you have, but if you would like more information, please contact the DAAT office