PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Melinda Edwards
AU  - Caron Lawson
AU  - Safiyyah Rahman
AU  - Kerry Conley
AU  - Hannah Phillips
AU  - Rebecca Uings
TI  - What does quality healthcare look like to adolescents and young adults? Ask the experts!
AID  - 10.7861/clinmedicine.16-2-146
DP  - 2016 Apr 01
TA  - Clinical Medicine
PG  - 146--151
VI  - 16
IP  - 2
4099  - http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/16/2/146.short
4100  - http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/16/2/146.full
SO  - Clin Med2016 Apr 01; 16
AB  - 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.