Evaluation of publicly funded services is an issue of accountability but also of continuous improvement. In health care services, the users can be adversely affected by poor services and the financial, psychosocial and physical costs can be enormous. It is increasingly important that evaluation be targeted at decreasing health inequalities so that the widening gap between the wealthy and poor can be reduced.
The provision of maternity services in western countries has changed over the past few decades and is an excellent case study of the importance of evaluation and evidence-based research. This paper discusses the general context of changes to maternity services and briefly reports on a comparative study of low-risk women choosing birth centre or traditional labour ward care.
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