Abstract
The recently released draft New South Wales Mental Health Strategy Document [1] ‘Caring for Mental Health’ has a clearly articulated focus on improving the consumer oriented component of mental health services. This is in line with international and national trends. One approach to delivering such a consumer focus is by actively seeking measures of consumer satisfaction with services and attempting to respond to issues raised. Surveys that purport to measure the satisfaction with mental health services of a client population have become an increasingly popular exercise in recent years. The results of consumer satisfaction surveys are frequently put forward by managers as evidence of the quality of service provision by their organisation. Ascertaining levels of consumer satisfaction with mental health services is by no means an easy task, nor is it clear what contribution it makes to real service evaluation. The authors attempt to elucidate some of these dilemmas.