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Foreword
This report presents the findings of a review of the
evaluation of phase 1 of three of the four national health
demonstration projects (
DPs), Healthy Respect (
HR), Have a Heart Paisley (
HaHP) and Starting Well (
SW). It is important to note that in
order to inform decision-making our review had to be
carried out before any of the external evaluation final
reports had been submitted to the Scottish Executive, so
has not taken into account the content of those reports.
Some evidence on early outcomes in
SW was available at the time of writing
together with interim reports on the process of
implementing
SW and
HaHP, but the timing meant that it has
not been possible to fully address the first objective of
the group's remit. Since completing the main text of our
report we have had sight of drafts of two of the three
final reports. While these confirm our view that the impact
of the
DPs is currently questionable, and that
their potential effectiveness has been limited by a variety
of methodological problems, it is also the case that the
evaluations have provided much useful evidence for
learning. Moreover as a group we feel this sequence of
events provides further evidence to support our conclusion
that more careful consideration of timing and better
integration with decision-making processes is essential to
making best use of the resources invested in
evaluation.
National Demonstration Projects Evaluation Task
Group
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