Public-Patient Involvement and Engagement
Patient-Public Involvement (PPI) groups ensure that the views of service users, patients, carers, care staff and the wider public are included when developing new mental health research.
At Research & Innovation at GMMH, we believe that research is for everyone, and we are committed to making sure our research matters.
The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) defines public involvement in research as “Research being carried out ‘with’ or ‘by’ members of the public rather than ‘to’, ‘about’ or ‘for’ them.” Public contributors bring their lived experience, knowledge and skills to help develop and support research.
All our research units and many of our studies involve Public-Patient Involvement (PPI) groups (or Service User Reference Groups – SURGs) to help make sure that the research is valuable, feasible, and carefully planned and executed. Good PPI can improve research quality and, ultimately, enhance future care, treatment, and support.
As well as being consulted on details of research, PPI can also include active collaboration, co-production, and employing people with relevant lived experience (LEx), which can integrate the perspectives of patients, carers, and clinical staff into research planning and delivery.
UK Standards for Public Involvement in Research
We work hard to uphold the UK standards for public involvement in research, set out by the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR). You can read about these standards here. The standards comprise six value-based themes:
- Inclusive Opportunities: Provide accessible involvement opportunities that reach people and groups according to research needs.
- Working Together: Collaborate in a way that values all contributions and fosters respectful and productive relationships.
- Support and Learning: Offer support and learning opportunities to build confidence and skills for public involvement.
- Communications: Use plain language for timely and relevant communications in involvement plans and activities.
- Impact: Seek improvement by identifying and sharing the difference public involvement makes to research.
- Governance: Involve the public in research management, regulation, leadership, and decision-making.
The Research Cycle
To meet the ambitions highlighted by the Standards, it's important we understand how to design and deliver PPI effectively. We support research teams to consider whether their research proposal addresses priorities identified by patients, service users, carers, or care staff. If not, teams can assess which elements of their research can be informed by these groups' views.
The diagram below shows the full research cycle and suggests potential areas for PPI input at each stage. This model was co-produced with PPI involvement and refined by a public contributor with relevant lived experience (Louise Tings, Bristol).
Lived experience researcher: Dr Rory Byrne
Post-doctoral user-researcher with the Psychosis Research Unit, GMMH
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