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The SDHI Tayside evaluation - Key service characteristics
The SDHI Tayside evaluation, using evidence from staff and client interviews and focus groups, identified five service characteristics that were believed to facilitate the likelihood of service uptake among populations with unmet needs. These were Proximity, Responsiveness, Convenience, Timing and Continuity and together form the "PRaCTiCe" mnemonic.
1. Proximity
Proximity refers to the degree to which interventions intended and/or managed to make the approach personal to the individual and can be thought of in terms of:
- focus - whether the approach was to an individual or to a wider social group;
- place - how close the approach was to the personal and/or social world inhabited by the individual;
- relationship - how personal and "deep" the relationship was between the individual care provider and the client.
2. Responsiveness
Responsiveness refers to the client's expectation that the service will produce tangible benefit for them. Therefore, the service must not only deliver and be seen to deliver; but also it must deliver on outcomes that are valued by the client.
3. Convenience
Three factors can be identified as contributing to convenience. These are:
- accessibility - how easy it is for the client to visit the service;
- frequency - how often the client might visit the location irrespective of the service being located there;
- availability - whether the client is free and therefore available to engage with the service at that location.
4. Timing
Timing could refer to either when the service approaches the individuals or when the service makes itself available for clients to approach it. In addition, it may also be related to how the provision of a service coincides with the provision of other services.
5. Continuity
Continuity refers to three subcomponents:
- persistence - the degree to which the service continued to make its service available to the person;
- person - seeing the same individual over time and this developing a relationship;
- place - the location of service provision.
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