Impact of changes to day services commissioned by Essex County Council in North Essex, Wickford, Rochford & Castlepoint: web survey report

The questions were developed initially from the day service specification documents and the length of the questionaire was aimed at enabling useful information to be collected whilst not creating a questionaire that was too long or unwieldy to complete. The first question acted as a filter and utilised 'skip logic' to direct informants to the appropriate set of questions, depending on their pattern of service use. Respondents who were currently receiving a service were very positive about their services, with some perceiving the help and approach as ‘life changing’. Alongside these positive views, some of those who used the ‘old style’ services were concerned about the loss of valued social support and self-help together with perceived reductions in levels of service, which was thought to have caused considerable distress for some people. The current services are clearly working very well for some people but others may be 'falling through the net'.