Participatory Research Into Inclusive Practice: Improving Services for People With Long Term Neurological Conditions

Abstract

People with long-term conditions are intensive users of health services as well as being long term users of social care and community services. In the UK, the Department of Health has suggested that the development of a more inclusive approach to services could furnish benefits to people with long-term conditions and financial savings for service providers.

Researchers with a varied set of expertise and experience (users of neuro-rehabilitation services, staff working in services, people working with third sector agencies and university academics) adopted a participatory research approach to work together to explore what inclusion might look and feel like for people who are long term users of health services. The element of critique and mutual challenge, developed within the research process, disturbed current presentations of inclusion and inclusive practice. It revealed that the more usually expected components of inclusion (trust, respect and shared responsibility) whilst necessary for inclusive practice, are not necessarily sufficient. Inclusion is revealed as a complex and challenging process that requires the active construction of a critical communicative space for dialectical and democratic learning for service development.