This report sets out some key potential benefits of shared decision making and to what extent they are being realised without shared decision making, providing a framework and baseline against which the impact of implementing shared decision making can be measured.

There is a need to evaluate the impact of the national Shared Decision Making Programme and the Patient Decision Aids (PDAs) that have been developed to support its future growth. The evaluation approach, outlined in this document, establishes a means of developing a national level evaluation of the impact of PDAs and Shared decision making.

The evaluation approach comprises two elements: an evidence baseline; and the research framework. The evidence baseline sets out a number of proposed measures which could be used to evaluate the impact of PDAs and SDM more broadly. The research framework could be used alongside the evidence baseline and recommends short, medium and long-term projects that will support the measurement of the impact of SDM going forward. It includes approaches and templates that could potentially be adopted and adapted for local use.