title: What does quality healthcare look like to adolescents and young adults? Ask the experts!
abstract: It is widely recognised that developmentally appropriate services for adolescents and young people improve both healthcare experience and health outcomes. However, there is limited evidence of using young people's expertise to evaluate services, or of young people participating in service developments or design to meet their healthcare needs. This report covers both the process and outcomes of a collaborative project with a group of young people (aged 17-25 years) who are 'experts by experience'. We used qualitative mixed methodology to derive themes from narrative accounts of these young people's healthcare experiences to develop an assessment framework that they identified as being relevant to evaluating services. Informing young people about other assessment measures currently in use (including the Department of Health's You're Welcome quality criteria) enabled the group to further develop their views and refine their proposed assessment framework. This paper is co-authored with young people, enabling them to directly voice their views about healthcare services. Reflections on this process and recommendations for working more collaboratively with young people to evaluate healthcare services are also given.
authors.affiliation: Evelina London Children's Hospital, Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK melinda.edwards@gstt.nhs.uk.
authors.forename: Melinda
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Edwards
authors.affiliation: Evelina London Children's Hospital, Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK.
authors.forename: Caron
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lawson
authors.affiliation: Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK.
authors.forename: Safiyyah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rahman
authors.affiliation: Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK.
authors.forename: Kerry
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Conley
authors.affiliation: Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK.
authors.forename: Hannah
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Phillips
authors.affiliation: Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK.
authors.forename: Rebecca
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Uings
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D016497:Adolescent Health Services / Q000592:standards*; D000328:Adult; D003219:Confidentiality; D006302:Health Services Research; D006801:Humans; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Adolescents; evaluation; involvement; services; young adults