Menu

Our Patient Forum

The HeRC Patient & Public Involvement (H@PPI) Forum

Members of the HeRC @ Patient and Public Involvement (H@PPI) Forum

Our Patient Forum

For four years (2014-2018), HeRC’s Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) forum, H@PPI (HeRC@PPI), played an integral role in embedding the ethos of meaningful patient public involvement across all of HeRC’s research projects. They worked tirelessly, shaping HeRC’s engagement, advising on research and reaching out to the wider community.

H@PPI’s achievements include:

  • Winning a Making a Difference Award in 2018 in the category of Outstanding Public and Community Engagement Initiative (public contribution) – see the video.
  • Conducting an investigation into how 12 UK funding bodies viewed and funded public involvement in research.
  • Acting as co-applicants and/or ‘critical friends’, facilitating early public involvement right from the start of research projects.
  • Participating in running family-friendly stalls alongside researchers to engage the public about health informatics research at festivals, science fairs and museum open days.
  • Co-presenting alongside researchers at major health informatics conferences in Edinburgh, Manchester and Swansea.
  • Advising national research funders and public health bodies on public engagement strategies in relation to health informatics research.
  • Acting as powerful advocates for health informatics research by supporting our social media campaign #datasaveslives.
  • Addressing their own self-defined priorities as part of smaller working groups, including promoting greater dialogues about health data research and breaking barriers that block people from diverse backgrounds from getting involved in shaping health research.
“The H@PPI Forum epitomises meaningful involvement of patients and the public in the full lifecycle of research. I have had the pleasure of seeing the H@PPI cohort develop into an effective team, integrated equally well with research groups, local communities and diverse interest groups. This work has generated public support and good governance for health research with big data.
In addition, H@PPI members are now routinely ‘co-designers’ and ‘co-investigators’ in that research. This is by far the best Patient & Public Involvement work I have seen.”

Prof Iain Buchan, Director, Health eResearch Centre