Extension to the Home Care User Experience Survey: Initial Feedback to Councils

All councils with social services responsibilities (CSSRs) were required to conduct a user experience survey (UES) for home care service users by April 2003. The extension to this survey sought to add value to the UES for a sample of participating councils by enhancing comparability across dimensions not included in the four compulsory questions. All councils with social services responsibilities were invited to participate in the extended survey using the slightly amended full version of the questionnaire that had been developed by ONS in collaboration with SPRU. In addition to collating in-depth and comparable data the study aims to assess the four questions devised by ONS for their suitability as performance indicators. The other principal objective is to enable authorities to compare the quality of home care providers in their authorities and with providers used by other authorities. Thirty-four CSSRs undertook the extended UES. They included one London borough, eight metropolitan authorities, fourteen shire counties and eleven unitary authorities. In total information was collected from over 20, 000 home care users. This report provides an overview of the survey results for all 34 participating authorities