Quality at home for older people (Involving service users in defining home care specifications)

The government's NHS Plan emphasises the importance of services based on users' views.

This highly topical report provides practical guidance on how to ensure that older people's views are heard and acted on, and their views monitored, in relation to service quality.

Quality at home for older people:

provides new information on the definition of quality in home care services by service users both under and over 80 years of age;

identifies users' priorities for the first time;

shows the differences and similarities in the perceptions of quality between white and minority ethnic service users;

compares different methods of obtaining service users' views;

 makes recommendations for ways of ensuring that listening to older people's views on quality becomes part of the mainstream process of purchasing and providing quality home care services.

This report will be invaluable for policy makers, home care service managers and providers, and service users and voluntary organisations concerned with ensuring that service users' voices are listened to. It will also be of interest to academics and students on nursing, social care, social work and social policy courses.