Report

HSMC

Systematic provision of information on quality of primary care services

Consumer Research Report 3:

Making health service information accessible

Jo Ellins and Shirley McIver

Health Services Management Centre

August 2008

What is the focus of the report?

High quality information is an essential prerequisite for consumers to navigate and make best use of healthcare services, including choosing between different providers. As the government’s patient information strategy – Better information, better choices, better health – explains:

High quality information empowers people. With poor information they cannot make effective choices; and without information they have no real choices at all (Department of Health, 2004: 3).

This raises important questions about what is meant by ‘high quality’ patient information, and whether such information is accessible to all those who need it.

Traditionally, the quality of patient information has tended to be judged on the basis of criteria relating to the properties of materials themselves. So, for example, high quality materials are those which are accurate, up-to-date, clearly presented and so forth. However, more recently, the concept of health literacy has emerged to describe a range of skills which people need to make sense of and apply information in a health context (see below for a detailed description of health literacy). Research demonstrates that both robust materials and health literacy skills are essential for informed decision making by healthcare consumers.

In considering how information can be made accessible to consumers, this report brings together a range of evidence on:

• the prevalence of health literacy and basic skills in the British population

• the accessibility, comprehensibility and usability of health information

• meeting the information needs of people with low health literacy.

Research Report 4 takes these issues further by exploring the...