Review of the evidence for adolescent and young person specific, community-based health services for NHS managers

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the evidence surrounding the design and delivery of adolescent-specific health services for young people aged 14-25. This aims to make recommendations for National Health Service (NHS) senior management teams on the available literature relating to service design for children’s and young people's services within the UK.

This paper presents a mini-review carried out in Spring 2013 using EMBASE, BNI, PSYCHinfo, MEDLINE and Google Scholar to systematically search available published and unpublished research papers. Systematic reviews, meta-analyses and evaluations of service models were included within this review. Adapted “GRADE” criteria were used to appraise the evidence.

Of 70 papers found, 22 met the inclusion criteria. There were five main service designs found within the literature: hospital-based; school-linked or school-based; community based; combination and integrative; and other methods which did not fit into the four other categories.

This review is limited to the literature available within the inclusion criteria and search strategy used. It intends to inform management decisions in combination with other parameters and available evidence.

There is range of research and evidence syntheses relating to adolescent services, but none of these have been conducted with a focus on the UK NHS and the information needs of managers re-designing services in the current climate within England.