Exploring family members' experiences of the Assessment and Treatment Unit supporting their relative

Background Learning disability services must include the people who use them (individuals and their families/carers) in service commissioning, planning and delivery (Department of Health 2012. Transforming care: A national response to Winterbourne View Hospital. Department of Health review: Final report). One group of important stakeholders in learning disability services are the family members and carers of people with a learning disability. The aim of this study was to explore how family members experienced their involvement with one Assessment and Treatment Unit, with a view to shaping future service developments. Materials and Methods Qualitative methods were employed to explore family members' lived experiences. Four participants, all parents of service users, took part in semi-structured interviews. Interview transcripts were analysed using thematic analysis. Results Analysis elicited four master themes under which subordinate themes clustered. The master themes were as follows: “Admission as traumatic, a relief, or both,” “Negotiating a new role,” “Valued features of the unit” and “Negative experiences.”. Conclusions The findings have implications for learning disability services and future research. Findings are discussed with relevance to strengths, limitations, wider literature and policies driving learning disability services.