Promoting best practice in public involvement

 In a move to promote best practice in public involvement, the SPCR has funded six pilot ‘pre-grant’ involvement workshops to support potential FR15 and FR16 funding bids.

One workshop hosted in Bristol was entitled ‘Involvement for NIHR SPCR FR15/16: A panel and participation event for members of SPCRcentres’ and allowed individual researchers to pitch their research idea to a panel for feedback. Alternatively, attendees could play ‘Partneropoly’ (pictured below), acustomised, innovative and engaging way to interact with the public and discuss research. Catherine Jameson (Public Involvement and Engagement Co-ordinator for the Centre for Academic Primary Care, University of Bristol) has written about the day for our blog.

Five separate SPCR workshops focussed on specific aspects of public involvement or research themes were hosted at the University of Oxford:

• Clinical Trials - online recruitment and electronic health records
• Involving the public, patients and practitioners in general practice workforce research
• Public involvement with children and young people in primary care research
• Research into public involvement: PPI in quantitative research methodologies
• Diversity in PPI in primary care

These workshops ran over the course of a day in two 2-hour sessions. The morning sessions featured collaborative discussions about issues relating to the session theme. The afternoon then concentrated on projects and recommendations for future work. For example, the ‘Public involvement with children and young people in primary care research’ plan to co-create a young person’s group for involvement in primary care research, to support SPCR funded departments in funding and project involvement activities.

Very interesting, everyone very open to comments, wide ranging and freeform discussion
- Public Contributor

Reports and recommendations from each group will be available to all SPCR partner departments, designed to help researchers plan and conduct public involvement for FR15 and FR16 bids.

The feedback from public and SPCR attendees alike was incredibly positive, with all attendees stating the events they attended were useful, with comments such as ‘Very interesting, everyone very open to comments, wide ranging and freeform discussion’ and ‘Good to have diverse inputs to session’. Constructive feedback on these pilot sessions about structure, organisation, and location will inform any future events.

We would like to thank all the public attendees for their time and enthusiastic contributions at all these events, and to the researchers and involvement leads for their openness and engagement. As a pilot scheme, I think we can say this has been a resounding success. There have been lessons learned for future events, and a lot of useful discussion that can be taken forward to inform best practice in research involvement.

You can read a public perspective of the ‘Clinical Trials - online recruitment and electronic health records’ here, by Eric Deeson, and a researcher’s perspective of the ‘Diversity in Patient and Public Involvement’ by Rose Watson here. Reports on the day’s outcomes are coming soon.

If you would like advice on a public involvement event, you can contact your local PPI Lead, or see our PPI resources section.