Consumer participation in service evaluation and quality improvement: key ingredients for a system to deliver national indicators.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this paper is to describe the fundamental components of a system to ensure consumer participation in mental health service evaluation and quality improvement.
CONCLUSIONS: The seven fundamental components identified provide the basis for a system to deliver national indicators for consumer participation in quality improvement under the National Health Performance domain of "responsiveness to consumers". The MH-CoPES Framework satisfies these criteria and may be drawn upon as the basis for developing local systems for consumer participation in quality improvement within mental health services.