title: Professional perspectives on service user and carer involvement in mental health care planning: a qualitative study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Involving users/carers in mental health care-planning is central to international policy initiatives yet users frequently report feeling excluded from the care planning process. Rigorous explorations of mental health professionals' experiences of care planning are lacking, limiting our understanding of this important translational gap.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To explore professional perceptions of delivering collaborative mental health care-planning and involving service users and carers in their care.
  
  
  METHODS
  Qualitative interviews and focus groups with data combined and subjected to framework analysis.
  
  
  METHODS
  UK secondary care mental health services.
  
  
  METHODS
  51 multi-disciplinary professionals involved in care planning and recruited via study advertisements.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Emergent themes identified care-planning as a meaningful platform for user/carer involvement but revealed philosophical tensions between user involvement and professional accountability. Professionals emphasised their individual, relational skills as a core facilitator of involvement, highlighting some important deficiencies in conventional staff training programmes.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Although internationally accepted on philosophical grounds, user-involved care-planning is poorly defined and lacks effective implementation support. Its full realisation demands greater recognition of both the historical and contemporary contexts in which statutory mental healthcare occurs.
authors.affiliation: EQUIP, School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom. Electronic address: Penny.bee@manchester.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Penny
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Bee
authors.affiliation: EQUIP, School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom. Electronic address: Helen.brooks@manchester.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Helen
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Brooks
authors.affiliation: EQUIP, School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom. Electronic address: Claire.fraser@manchester.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Claire
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Fraser
authors.affiliation: EQUIP, School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom. Electronic address: Karina.lovell@manchester.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Karina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Lovell
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D017144:Focus Groups; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D008605:Mental Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D009788:Occupational Therapy; D010347:Patient Care Planning; D010358:Patient Participation; D011568:Psychiatric Nursing; D012380:Role; D012941:Social Responsibility; D013338:Students, Nursing; D006113:United Kingdom; D000078329:Workforce
keywords: Care planning; Mental health; Qualitative research; Service delivery; User involvement