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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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The 'user' : friend, foe or fetish?
— a critical exploration of user involvement in health and social care | | Author(s) | Stephen Cowden, Gurnam Singh |
| Journal title | Critical Social Policy, vol 27, no 1, issue 90, February 2007 |
| Pages | pp 5-23 |
| Source | http://csp.sagepub.com |
| Keywords | Health services ; Services ; Consumer ; Participation. |
| Annotation | 'User involvement' has become the new mantra in public services with professionals constantly being reminded that 'the user knows best'. This paper asks where the preoccupation with the 'user' comes from, and poses some questions about what 'user involvement' actually means. First, it considers the historical antecedents of the discourse of user involvement, the focus being on the struggles over British welfare that took place from the late 1970s until the early 1980s. This forms the context from which it is sought to understand and critique the New Labour project in relation to the massive expansion of regulatory frameworks. It is argued that, far from enabling the delivery of high quality integrated services that truly reflect the interests of current and future users, these policies represent the further commodification of basic human needs and welfare. Finally, it has become apparent the current user discourse has assumed contradictory manifestations, in particular the emergence of groupings of 'professional users' who participate in the formation of state policy as 'expert consultants'. The authors conclude by arguing for an approach in which user perspectives are neither privileged nor subjugated, but are situated in a process of creative critical dialogue with professionals, which is linked to the development of a concept of welfare driven by emancipatory rather than regulatory imperatives. (KJ/RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-070216201 A |
| Classmark | L: I: WY: TMB |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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