Health and social care services for people with complex needs: The importance of context in the design process

Our overall aim was to improve the design process of a service which integrates health and social care for a client group with complex needs in a UK region. We use this case study to illustrate contextual influences in the stages up to the definition of the service objectives. Our work included analysis of national and local policy documents, an set of observations (n=6), interviews (n=10) with service staff and document analysis in order to piece together the service design behaviours over the last 10 years.