Outcomes for users and carers in the context of health and social care partnership working : from research to practice

There is currently much policy emphasis on both partnership working between health and social services in the UK and on the outcomes delivered by services. This article provides an account of two consecutive projects centred on these two themes. The first project, at the University of Glasgow, sought to address the lack of evidence about the outcomes delivered to service users by partnerships. Following from this project, the Joint Improvement Team of the Scottish Government commissioned the researchers to develop a toolkit to involve users and unpaid carers in performance management in community care in Scotland. The remit of this second project expanded during 2007 as it became linked with the development of the emerging National Outcomes Framework for community care in Scotland. This article outlines the outcomes‐based piloting work currently under way in Scotland.