What's in a service? Consumers' views of Australian mental health services.

This paper reports on a series of interviews with consumers of mental health services, conducted as part of the Consumer Evaluation of Mental Health Services project (CEO-MHS). With one of our overarching aims being to develop a consumer oriented and consumer directed method of evaluating mental health services, we considered seeking consumers' views of mental health services, using qualitative interviews, to be essential. Consumer Researchers from the team conducted 33 interviews in NSW, Australia. Eleven themes emerged from analysis of the interview data and these themes are described in detail.