CONSUMERISM VERSUS EMPOWERMENT - A PRINCIPLED APPROACH TO THE INVOLVEMENT OF OLDER SERVICE USERS

The first purpose of this article is to critically evaluate the partic ular approach to user involvement and user empowerment adopted by the British government. In order to expose fully the rather shallow basis of this model of user involvement, we use the term 'consumerism' to co nvey the market analogy underpinning the government's policy and contr ast this with genuine empowerment. Secondly, the article contains an o utline of the eight key principles according to which the empowerment of service users could be realised. Finally, a practical example is us ed to show how to achieve the empowerment of frail older people.