Developing Quality and Outcomes Measures for Community Equipment Services

Community equipment services are increasingly seen as a key element in enabling older and disabled people greater levels of independence and the ability to stay in their own homes. Recent government investment in the expansion of equipment services bears witness to the view that community equipment services are a cost effective way of helping promote independence among older and disabled people. Despite this, there is a lack of adequate measures of both quality and outcomes within equipment services. Those measurement tools that do exist tend to focus almost exclusively on the equipment itself, often on the impact of an individual piece of equipment on a persons functioning or have been developed in the context of another areas. This paper draws on a project that explores the outcomes and quality of community equipment services. Dimensions of quality and outcomes within community equipment services were explored using focus groups with users of equipment services, interviews with those who assess equipment needs, a survey of equipment providers and a review of previous research, whilst the development of quality and outcomes indicators was aided by cognitive interviews with users of equipment. The presentation will discuss the dimensions of quality and outcomes that were identified and the development of quality and outcome indicators. The results of this work will form the basis of the planned national User Experience Survey on equipment and equipment services that local authorities will be required to conduct early in 2008.