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Suggestions in maternal and child health for the National Technology Assessment Programme: a consideration of consumer and professional priorities

C Rigby

Keele University, Room 75, Keele Hall, Newcastle, Staffordshire ST5 5BG, England, c.rigby{at}uso.keele.ac.uk

M Newburn

Policy Research Department, National Childbirth Trust, Alexandra House, Oldham Terrace, London W3 6NH, England

M Stewart

School of Maternal and Child Health, Faculty of Health and Social Care, University of West England Bristol, Blackberry Hill, Stapleton, Bristol BS16 1DD, England, mary.stewart{at}uwe.ac.uk

P Jones

Mathematics Department, Keele University, Mackay Building, Newcastle, Staffordshire ST5 5BG, England

In North Staffordshire, the Achieving Sustainable Quality in Maternity (ASQUAM) meetings provide the programme for clinical guidelines and audit over the following year. The ASQUAM clinical effectiveness programme has attempted to address a number of the issues identified as obstacles to informed democratic prioritisation. For example, it became clear that a number of topics raised were actually research questions. The organisers therefore decided to split the fourth ASQUAM day into an ‘audit’ morning and a ‘research’ afternoon. The meeting organised by RJ, CR and PJ in partnership with the Midwives Information and Resource Service and the National Childbirth Trust, was timed to allow the research ideas to feed into the national Health Technology Assessment (HTA) programme. This meeting was designed to increase the profile of ASQUAM amongst consumers and to increase their representation at the meeting. Objectives were to choose a new set of research priorities for the year 2000, and to ascertain the voting pattern of comparison to health professionals. There was overall agreement in terms of priorities, with the consumer group prioritising 8 of the 10 topics chosen by the professionals (or 10 of the 11). No significant differences between the proportions of voted cast for each topic by professionals and consumers were found apart from topic 20.

The numbers of consumers were small which does limit the number the validity of statistical comparisons. Nevertheless, it is clear that voting patterns were similar. Overall the process suggests that democratic prioritisation is a viable option and one that may become essential within the framework of clinical and research governance.

Key Words: Audit • consumer • maternity • priorities • research

The Journal of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health, Vol. 122, No. 1, 50-54 (2002)
DOI: 10.1177/146642400212200115


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