Service evaluations

What is a service evaluation?

A service evaluation is a way of measuring current practice and can be used to determine what standard the service achieves. It may be specific and focused on one area of the service (e.g. “How long are waiting lists for service A?”) or it could look at all aspects of a service providing a complete and rounded view.

Service Evaluation within the Trust does not require ethical approval but does require the Research and Development Department’s approval.

Service Evaluation is defined as study in which research procedures are used in a systematic way to judge the quality or worth of a service or intervention, providing evidence that can be used to improve it.

The research and development department are responsible for giving approvals to all service evaluations being carried out trust wide.

The number of service evaluations that opened in 2023/2024 are 59 in number.

Out of these, 19 have been approved and completed, 20 have been approved and ongoing, 19 are undergoing review, while 1 was received but was closed/not undertaken.

Why complete a service evaluation?

There may be many factors involved that lead you to believe that conducting a particular service evaluation is a priority, these may include:

• The need to evaluate a new service or a change in service
• The need to understand whether an innovation works
• Requests from commissioners
• Service user or carer requests for improvement
• Staff raising concerns
• Productivity concerns
• Feeling that the service is achieving best practice

Next steps and support

Your service evaluation should be ethical and adhere to BSMHFT’s governance standards. When conducting an evaluation you will need to send a proposal to the Research and Development (R&D) Department, using the following BSMHFT standard template; all proposals will need to be submitted on this.

R&D will then provide feedback and sign-off your proposal. We will also confirm that the activity you are undertaking is service evaluation rather than audit or research; for understanding whether your proposed activity is research, service evaluation or audit, please complete the following tool.

R&D can arrange letters of access for students and researchers without Trust contracts if necessary.

The R&D department has prepared detailed service evaluation guidance, and can be contacted for further support and information.