How do wheelchair users and their carers want to be involved in making decisions about their equipment at the wheelchair service?

Patient involvement has been a focus of government health policy for some time, as a method of improving service quality and patient satisfaction. Research has found that there are benefits of patient involvement, but is less clear on which individuals want to be involved and to what extent.

There has been no research on user and carer perspectives of involvement in wheelchair services.

A qualitative approach will be used to discover if and how wheelchair users and their carers want to be involved in wheelchair services. Facilitators, barriers and changes to involvement throughout the course of interaction with the service will also be explored.

The interview transcripts will be analysed via interpretative phenomenological analysis to discover common themes.

This work will inform service development for wheelchair services and other services working with complex clients, as well as providing a starting point for further research on involvement with such clients.

View Executive Summary