User involvement in mental health service development: How far can it go?

Abstract

Abstract The principle of user involvement in mental health services is now advocated by central government, encouraged by service commissioners and accepted as a feature of service development by provider managers. In the wake of the 1990 NHS and Community Care Act, most localities have witnessed one or more consultation exercises which have informed mental health strategy documents produced by NHS and social service commissioners. This paper reports a piece of action research about user involvement in one locality, which attempted to take users beyond the role of passive suppliers of opinion and encouraged their role as active negotiators of change. achievements and limits of success of this exercise, the socio-political context of user involvement in British mental health service development is considered. In order to understand both the