Development of joint user/patient outcome measures for older adults with mental health problems

Abstract

Purpose

This paper seeks to discuss the collaborative development and piloting of joint user outcome measures for older adults with mental health problems (OAMH) and their carers. Outcome measures are crucial to measuring the impact of services on people's lives and are central to the new NHS and Adult Social Care (ASC) Outcome Frameworks.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper describes the development of a joint user outcome measure based on ASC User Experience Surveys (UES) and User Outcome Measures, and NHS Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMS) and Patient Reported Experience Measures (PREMS).

Findings

The aim was to supplement existing clinical outcome measures (HONOS65+) with holistic measures of the impact of services on the lives of patients, easy to administer, covering a range of health and social care outcomes and meeting both health and social care outcome requirements.

Originality/value

As far as is known this is one of the first tests of a joint patient reported experience and outcome measure. Such measures may enable joint services to: measure wider outcomes as well as clinical outcomes; meet the new focus on outcomes; and enable more systematic collection of outcome and effectiveness/Value for Money (VFM) data. There are also lessons about collaborative working and development.

Citation

Walton, D., Fullerton, M. and Patel, S. (2011), "Development of joint user/patient outcome measures for older adults with mental health problems", Quality in Ageing and Older Adults, Vol. 12 No. 4, pp. 210-216. https://doi.org/10.1108/14717791111191135