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Background: It has been established that mental health-care planning does not adequately respond to the needs of those accessing services. Understanding the reasons for this and identifying whose needs care plans serve requires an exploration of the perspectives of service users, carers and professionals within the wider organizational context., Objective: To explore the current operationalization of care planning and perceptions of its function within mental health services from the perspectives of multiple stakeholders., Settings and Participants: Participants included 21 mental health professionals, 29 service users and 4 carers from seven Mental Health Trusts in England. All participants had experience of care planning processes within secondary mental health-care services., Methods: Fifty-four semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants and analysed utilizing a qualitative framework approach., Findings: Care plans and care planning were characterized by a failure to meet the complexity of mental health needs, and care planning processes were seen to prioritize organizational agendas and risk prevention which distanced care planning from the everyday lives of service users., Discussion and Conclusions: Care planning is recognized, embedded and well established in the practices of mental health professionals and service users. However, it is considered too superficial and mainly irrelevant to users for managing mental health in their everyday lives. Those responsible for the planning and delivery of mental health services should consider ways to increase the relevance of care planning to the everyday lives of service users including separating risk from holistic needs assessment, using support aids and utilizing a peer workforce in this regard., (© 2017 The Authors Health Expectations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Background: Multimorbidity, defined as the presence of two or more long-term conditions, is increasingly common in primary care, and patients with multimorbidity may face particular barriers to quality of care and increased safety risks due to the complexity of managing multiple conditions. Consistent with calls to directly involve service users in improving care, we aimed to use design materials to codesign new interventions to improve safety in primary care., Design: We drew on two established methods-accelerated experience-based codesign and the future workshop approach. We synthesized design materials based on research into the patient experience of safety and multimorbidity in primary care to enable both patients, service users and carers, and primary health-care professionals to propose interventions to improve care., Results: Both patients and professionals prioritized polypharmacy as a threat to safety. Their recommendations for supportive interventions were consistent with Burden of Treatment theory, emphasizing the limited capacity of patients with multimorbidity and the need for services to proactively offer support to reduce the burden of managing complex treatment regimes., Discussion & Conclusions: The process was feasible and acceptable to participants, who valued the opportunity to jointly propose new interventions. The iterative workshop approach enabled the research team to better explore and refine the suggestions of attendees. Final recommendations included the need for accessible reminders to support medication adherence and medication reviews for particularly vulnerable patients conducted with pharmacists within GP practices., (© 2017 The Authors. Health Expectations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Background: Whilst there has been a focus on the importance of social support for managing long-term conditions, there has been little specific focus on the characteristics of social networks that shape self-management. Policy emphasis is placed on individual responsibility for self-care, and this influences commissioning of health-care services. Assumptions are often made by policymakers about accessibility and preference for support and the influence of the social context on chronic illness management., Objective: To examine the social networks of individuals with long-term conditions and identify how the characteristics of their composition influences support needs., Design, Setting and Participants: Thirty participants completed initial face-to-face in-depth interviews, telephone follow-ups and final face-to-face interviews in the north-west of England. A longitudinal qualitative design was used to elicit the subtle changes in relationships over a year., Findings: The findings suggest that the relationships which constitute a social network influence perceived support needs and attitudes to self-management. The amalgamation of relationships was characterized into three network typologies (family focused, friend focused or health-care professional focused) according to which types of relationships were dominant. In the absence of support, accounts highlighted a small number of substitutes who could provide support at times of critical need., Discussion: This study challenges the notion of 'self'-management as an individual construct as many of the practices of illness management involved the support and/or negotiation of roles with others. By examining the nuances of relationships, this study has highlighted the tacit boundaries of practical and emotional support provision., (© 2015 The Authors. Health Expectations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Introduction: Patient safety research has tended to focus on hospital settings, although most clinical encounters occur in primary care, and to emphasize practitioner errors, rather than patients' own understandings of safety., Objective: To explore patients' understandings of safety in primary care., Methods: Qualitative interviews were conducted with patients recruited from general practices in northwest England. Participants were asked basic socio-demographic information; thereafter, topics were largely introduced by interviewees themselves. Transcripts were coded and analysed using NVivo10 (qualitative data software), following a process of constant comparison., Results: Thirty-eight people (14 men, 24 women) from 19 general practices in rural, small town and city locations were interviewed. Many of their concerns (about access, length of consultation, relationship continuity) have been discussed in terms of quality, but, in the interviews, were raised as matters of safety. Three broad themes were identified: (i) trust and psycho-social aspects of professional-patient relationships; (ii) choice, continuity, access, and the temporal underpinnings of safety; and (iii) organizational and systems-level tensions constraining safety., Discussion: Conceptualizations of safety included common reliance on a bureaucratic framework of accreditation, accountability, procedural rules and regulation, but were also individual and context-dependent. For patients, safety is not just a property of systems, but personal and contingent and is realized in the interaction between doctor and patient. However, it is the systems approach that has dominated safety thinking, and patients' individualistic and relational conceptualizations are poorly accommodated within current service organization., (© 2015 The Authors Health Expectations Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Background: Progressive ataxias are neurological disorders affecting balance, co-ordination of movement and speech., Objective: A qualitative study was undertaken to discover patients' experiences of ataxia and its symptoms., Participants: Thirty-eight people with ataxia recruited from patient support groups and two hospital outpatients departments., Design: Cross-sectional qualitative study with thematic analysis., Results: These accounts highlight the limits of medicine in the context of a rare, incurable and disabling disorder, and the embodied uncertainties brought by slowly progressive diseases that lie at the boundaries of mainstream medical knowledge. The existential crises faced by people with ataxia are seemingly magnified by sometimes idiopathic aetiologies and the limited number of inherited conditions identifiable by the available genetic tests. Interviewees were drawn into a medical system that was focused mainly on the diagnosis process, with widely varying results. However, when asked, most had rather valued the provision of disability aids and physical therapies. Only one informant reported overcoming the myriad uncertainties of progressive ataxia, and their account supported the notion of 'biographical repair' in chronic illness., Conclusions: Clinical uncertainties in ataxia constrained people's attempts to deal with their condition. The construction of the proactive, informed, medical consumer who is assumed to be a partner in care is problematic in the context of a rare and difficult-to-diagnose disease for which there is usually no cure. Service providers should be mindful of the need to manage patient expectations in relation to diagnosis and cure. More focus might usefully be placed on the provision of physical therapies and disability aids., (© 2012 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)