Supporting service recipients to navigate complex service systems: An interdisciplinary scoping review

This scoping review aimed to identify potential factors from across eight disciplines’ approaches to complexity that could be positively applied to supporting services users to navigate health and social care. The illustrative example of families where a parent has mental health challenges is used as those families often have a wide range of complex needs both for the parent/s and children. These complexities can result in the involvement of multiple services and interventions. However, in attempting to respond to complex family needs, health and social care services may unintentionally increase the complexity and associated stress for the family. Two broad themes were identified within the multi-disciplinary literature including: testing service developments with a view to reduce or manage complexity; and approaches to support service users to navigate complexity. Specific learning from the scoping review can be applied to health and social care services to: encourage a focus on service users’ expectations, understandings and experiences of services; carefully consider the relationship between the service design and the service user’s behaviour; and finally reinforce the importance of service user involvement (or co-production) within service development and consideration of the relationship between the service user and provider. The knowledge drawn from this scoping review can inform the development and evaluation of current services and guide the development of future services. It can also help consider approaches to empower service users to navigate the complexity of services.