Cherie Gilruth

I did my placement as part of the Mental Health and Substance Use (MHSU) Pathfinder programme within the Government and NHS improvement agency Healthcare Improvement Scotland.  There are clear links between poor mental health and substance use yet people with these support needs often have a difficult experience accessing appropriate support as there's a lack of joined-up system pathways. The programme is working to redesign these pathways, so those accessing care for one issue will be treated for both at the point of contact.

In order to redesign the pathways, service users are interviewed to find out what the current system looks like. Third sector organisations are being commissioned to conduct these interviews.  My research found that the current method of interviewing wasn't bringing out sufficient insights, so I worked to make an interview pack that guided the interviewers through the process. The guide provides context by containing information on the programme and explains why users are being interviewed.  It also gives a strategy and a discussion plan to pull out useful data for use in redesign.

Guide contents

• Programme background 
• Why we are including service users in our research
• An explainer on qualitative data 
• Trauma informed interviewing 
• Interview guide 
• Tips for the note taker 
• Discussion plan with improved questions
• Hot Report for quick data synthesis 
• Tips for synthesising the qualitative data in which I've made an example