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Section 5 Summary of Morning discussions

Introduction

For the group discussions attendees were separated into small groups, each with their own facilitor who recorded the following discussion outputs.

The morning discussions focused on three questions selected to enhance the consultation questionnaire. These questions and a summary of the main points raised follows.

Question 1 Are the standards applicable for all services?

The majority of participants thought that the standards are applicable for all services, although not all standards will apply to all services.

Some of the points suggested by the group as requiring further consideration were:

• Standards need to be more clearly defined;
• What services the standards applied to needed to be defined;
• The needs of children and young people need greater consideration in the standards;
• The additional resources required to implement and monitor the standards needs to be addressed; and
• How services not publicly funded would be made to comply with the standards needs to be established.

Some of the additional points suggested for inclusion in the standards were:

Question 2 Are the responsibilities of the service users clearly defined?

There was no consensus response to this question, with three distinct views offered:

• The standards achieve the correct balance with regard to service users responsibilities: with consideration given to the potential negative consequence of placing too much emphasis on service user responsibilities acting as a barrier to people accessing services and the benefits of a separate agreement between the service and the individual;
• The standards should precisely define service user responsibilities and put these "up front" in the statements: with consideration given to addressing issues around violence, attendance, respectful attitudes and use of offensive language; and
• The standards should emphasis the partnership between service and service user and indicate the service user's responsibility towards engaging with their own treatment, with consideration of whether the standards as currently drafted place the service use in a passive role and the impact of that on service user empowerment.

Questions were raised about how to monitor any responsibilities that were placed on service users and what steps would be taken to ensure their compliance with these.

Question 3 What evidence could services provide to demonstrate that they are meeting the Quality Standards?

Despite initial reservations about ease of demonstrating achievement of the standards, the following extensive list of material that is already in use was identified:

• Feedback from everyone involved including Service Users;
• Self assessment records;
• Peer audit;
• Use of single shared assessment and service level agreements;
• Best value reviews;
• Written policies & procedures;
• Standards of qualification - occupational standards ( DANOS);
• Time limited action plans;
• Thorough record keeping including care plans;
• Independent reviews;
• Exit evaluation;
• Sustainable change evidenced;
• Evidence of ongoing training and development programmes;
• Observation of practice; and
• Complaints procedure evident.

These could form part of an audit tool or checklist that could accompany the standards.

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