What is a service evaluation?
A Service Evaluation is a way to define or measure current practice within a service. The results of the Service Evaluation help towards producing internal recommendations for improvements that are not intended to be generalised beyond the service area.
Service Evaluation is about judging or comparing the merit or worth of something.
What can a service evaluation tell you?
- Is the Trust meeting the needs of its patients / users?
- How successful is a particular service within the Trust?
- What is working well / what isn’t?
When should you use a service evaluation?
- New service or type of service
- When important or significant changes have been made
- To help secure new or additional funding
- When something isn’t working properly
- Testing local delivery
Caldicott approval
You may want to access and use patient data to help you complete your service evaluation. Where possible this data should be anonymised. If you wish to use identifiable confidential data, then an application for Caldicott approval should be submitted to the Information Governance Team for approval by the Caldicott Guardian.
What permission will I need to carry out the service evaluation?
- You will need the permission of your Director / Head of Service before you can begin your service evaluation.
- In order to obtain their permission, you will need to email them a copy of your proposal.
- The Director / Head of Service should respond to your email and confirm that the service evaluation can begin.
- You should not begin your service evaluation until you have received their confirmation email.
- Please keep a copy of the email for your records.
Evaluation planning checklist
Planning is a crucial part of the evaluation process. The following checklist has been designed to help with the process of carefully planning your evaluation, outlining the key steps going forward:
| Identify | Questions to ask |
| Study Type | Is this a Service Evaluation or Research? Is my study research? |
| Project Governance | Who will take responsibility for getting the evaluation off the ground and oversee its delivery? Who will write the evaluation plan, identify the required resources and engage stakeholders? Do you need an advisory or steering group? |
| Project Resources | What resources are available to support this evaluation? What resources do you think you might need / how much might it cost? Who might fund the evaluation? What level or type of evaluation do you need? |
| Support for the Project – All Stakeholders | Who are your key stakeholders? Who needs to be informed? Who do you need to involve in the evaluation planning, delivery and dissemination? Who has skills, experience and expertise to support you with your project? i.e. Patient and public involvement, equalities, communications and engagement, evaluation leads in your own or partner organisations |
| Support for the Project – Service User Involvement | How will you involve service users, patients, carers and the public in your evaluation? Consider this in terms of the design, delivery (data collection) and dissemination (communicating your findings). |
| Context: Evidence Base | What is the evidence base for the planned service, service change, pilot? How have similar services been evaluated in the past? |
| Context: Understanding the Service | Is it clear who the service is for? (population group, needs and characteristics) Is it clear what the desired intermediate and long term outcomes are and how the activities of the service or intervention will lead to these? |
| Scope of the Project | Have you agreed with your stakeholders the purpose of the evaluation? Are you clear what the evaluation will focus on? Is it clear why you are conducting an evaluation? |
| Aims and Objectives | Have you engaged your stakeholders to help you identify your evaluations aims (why you are doing this evaluation) and objectives (what you are trying to achieve)? Are your aims and objectives SMART? |
| Evaluation Approach | What evaluation approach or method are you planning to take? Do you need to commission an external evaluation? |
| Data Requirements | What information and data do you already have available to support your evaluation? What additional data collection do you need to undertake to be able to answer the aims and objectives of your evaluation? |
| Data Collection, Analysis and Reporting | What data do you need to collect? Will your data collection tools work? Are there any validated tools that can help? Who will collect the data? How will you analyse the data? Who will analyse the data? How and who will write up the findings? Have you identified any training needs to support these activities? |
| Timescales, Responsibilities and Resources | What are the timescales for the evaluation and the data collection? Who will be responsible for each of these? Do you need any additional resources or funding? |
| Information Governance | Have you reviewed your organisational policies on Information Governance including data protection, storage and use to ensure that your evaluation plan complies or sort advice from your information governance lead? Have you sought relevant permissions to undertake the service evaluation? |
| Ethical Implications | Have you considered the impact of your evaluation on the participants and the service? Have you put adequate safeguards in place to protect the participants in your study? Including gaining consent and feeding back findings. |
| Recommendations and Action Planning | Have you agreed your recommendations and how you are going to implement them? Have you developed your action plan? |
| Sharing the Findings | How are you going to feedback the findings from your evaluation to your stakeholders? Have you developed a communication plan to share your findings and recommendations? |
| Are you still doing an Evaluation ? | Once you have planned your evaluation, recheck whether you are doing a service evaluation or research to ensure that you have the appropriate permissions and approvals for starting the project. |
Resources and link to further information
Further information about Service Evaluation can be found at:
Resources include: Good Practice Guidelines & Framework of Evaluation Capabilities