Users and Providers: Different Perspectives on Community Care Services

Abstract

Elderly clients usually express satisfaction with their services when they are asked. Surveys of clients and carers therefore have to take this tendency into account. It is important not to ask direct questions and to allow for positive, neutral and negative responses, otherwise positive responses will be overestimated. A survey of clients and carers served by a community psychogeriatric service indicated that the way a service is delivered can be more important than what is provided. The differences between staff and user perceptions of services are analysed. There are theoretical reasons for the differences connected with the combination of care and control exercised by service providers. There are also practical reasons in terms of staff perceptions, which are dominated by process, and client perceptions, which are more directly influenced by the services as they are actually delivered. Attempts to incorporate users' views into the processes of service delivery need to understand these differences and to acknowledge the limitations of user satisfaction surveys.

It's a matter of choice: Making direct payments work in Staffordshire

“…The research design and methods attempt to acknowledge the limitations of user satisfaction surveys, where service users make positive responses about services they know to be of low quality, through fear of having services withdrawn, gratitude or general politeness (Wilson, 1993;Audit Commission, 1999).…”

Older People and Dissatisfaction with Wheelchair Services

“…Only one in 20 (4.7%) found the DSC staff unapproachable, which is a very low level of expressed dissatisfaction. Wilson (1993) argues that satisfaction surveys will report low levels of dissatisfaction with welfare services, due to the unequal power relationships between service providers and service users. We endeavoured to provide assurances to respondents that they would and could not be identified, so we do have reasonable confidence in these results.…”

Care management and social work: A case study of the role of social work in hospital discharge to residential or nursing home care

“…This suggests something about the way in which services are provided and the nature of the relationship with relevant professionals as being of at least equal importance as the specific tasks and roles undertaken (Wilson 1993). The next section goes on to consider the implications of these changes for the social work role.…”