Users in the driving seat or sitting alongside map-reading?

The government agenda is clear. At the highest level users are involved in policy making. We as service providers need to show evidence that users views are elicited and used to improve the quality of care. The tool bag of techniques used to elicit users views will be explored--questionnaires, structured interviews, focus groups and innovative cognitive techniques such as perception score cards. We explore the continuum of user-led qualitative techniques to provider-led quantitative approaches. Building a framework of techniques which cover the diverse needs of people using a speech and language therapy (SLT) service is a challenge. A greater challenge is using the views of users to bring about meaningful change.