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 identifi ed 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 refi ne their proposed assessment framework. This paper is co-authored with young people, enabling them to directly voice their views about healthcare services. Refl ections on this process and recommendations for working more collaboratively with young people to evaluate healthcare services are also given.