Service-user involvement in nurse education: partnership or tokenism?

Abstract

Following on from the Keogh Report, the need for a framework of service-user involvement exists not just in the health service, but also in higher education. There are wide variances globally in the levels of service-user interaction and involvement in healthcare education. Health policy internationally has indicated a move towards developing partnerships with service users, but to date this remains elusive, with the majority of user involvement consultative in approach. This article aims to discuss the health policy background and the current approaches taken in the involvement of service users in healthcare education.

Service user involvement in teaching and learning: student nurse perspectives

“…Overall, students appreciated the value of being coached by service users to learn, and in a meaningful way (McCutcheon and Gormley, 2014). This supports the research aim to evaluate nursing students' views of the PaCT initiative, to evidence the perceived benefits and to find out how it has impacted on nursing students' learning.…”

The day surgery experience from the perspective of service users

“…Recent national and local healthcare Policy indicates that patients should be making informed decisions and should be included in any healthcare decision (DOH, 2011;DHSSPS, 2011). Therefore it could be suggested that the paternalistic approach to healthcare remains were patient's treatments and care are made by healthcare professions without consultation with the patient (McCutcheon and Gormley, 2014).…”

Implementation of a mental health consumer academic position: Benefits and challenges

“…If these challenges are not effectively addressed, consumer involvement in education is likely to be tokenistic and to fail to achieve its potential. 2,26 Policy requires that consumers are involved at all levels of the mental health sector, 20 and indeed the findings of this study demonstrate several advantages of the consumer involvement in curriculum planning and teaching. The landmark Mental Health Nurse Education Taskforce Report 27 has consumer participation as an underlying principle for mental health nursing content in undergraduate curricula.…”

“…The challenges identified in this research include ensuring that the process of coproduction is meaningfully planned, ensuring potential existing relationships with consumer academicians are clarified, and that consumer perspectives become deeply embedded into curricula. If these challenges are not effectively addressed, consumer involvement in education is likely to be tokenistic and to fail to achieve its potential …”