Service Surveys

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Knowing what and who to ask, in order to get the most effective responses

National Quality Development can assist services to assess their performance, through communicating with the people who know it best. Service users, staff and other stakeholder have experiences and views which can be invaluable in assessing how a service performs, and also is invaluable to planning improvements and development.

Using the Quality Principles as a foundation, we have developed a set of survey methods and tools, which include online questionnaires, focus groups and interviews. These can be adapted to assist Alcohol and Drug Partnerships (ADPs) and services in their localities to gather and analyse feedback. Every service is different and therefore any survey work carried out can be tailored to reflect the services’ current needs, priorities and resources available, with a realistic timeframe agreed.

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Who do we survey?

When we begin working with a service, there are no preconceptions of how it is currently performing. As a result, we believe that those using and delivering services are the best judges of service performance, as they can offer valuable and constructive ideas on how a service can improve and develop. In order to obtain open and honest feedback, every individual’s anonymity is preserved.

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How do we report our findings?

In the course of carrying out service surveys, we may gather evidence from many people. Whilst it is not possible in our reporting to reflect every individual opinion obtained, we try to ensure that the breadth of views are reflected in as balanced a fashion as possible in our reports.

Our intention is to provide feedback to services which will assist them in future planning. Written reports will provide recognition of service strengths, as well as recommendations for improvement and development. Alongside the written report, we are more than happy to give presentations on our reports to stakeholder audiences.

National Quality Development can assist with further improvement and development planning, and can provide practical support with the implementation of recommendations as required. We can also carry out a review of improvements and developments after a sufficient period of time has elapsed in order to provide an update report.

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Common themes included in our surveys

  • Service environment
  • Ease of access to services
  • Assessment of need
  • Range of interventions available
  • Quality of care & support
  • Quality of staffing
  • Recovery planning & review
  • Partnership working
  • Service user involvement
  • Involvement of children & family

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What kind of outcomes can I expect for our service?

  • Improved correlation between service purpose, aims & interventions
  • More efficient keyworking systems
  • Revised groupwork programme
  • Implementation of service user progress & outcomes systems
  • More balanced caseloads
  • Wider range of interventions according to service user need
  • Improved service environment for children & families visiting the service
  • Improved relationships with partner agencies
  • Improved provisions of reports to partner agencies
  • More effective service user involvement activity
  • Introduction of annual cycle of improvement and development planning

For more information, or to arrange an informal discussion about how we might be able to help you, please get in touch.