If you have heard me speak at an event or conference you may have heard me talk about the need for us to see the public as partners in regulating modern health systems.

Yesterday I was chairing the small steering group that has been advising the Health Research Authority (HRA) on the development of its strategy for public involvement. The latter is not too far off seeing light of day and I hope weave gone some way to beginning to embody the concept of patients and the public as ‘regulatory partners.’

As part of the roll-out of what is for all intents and purposes a living document, HRA is holding a few public workshops where you can learn more. You’ll also have a chance to hear imore details about the results of the public engagement work we did. It is fascinating and you can already see the results of the dialogue workshops on the HRA website. I suspect the polling data won’t be that far behind.

I am pleased to see that the HRA is trying to explore and understand how public views differ across different segments of the population.

Details of how to attend and who to contact to get your name down, below:

HRA patient and public engagement project – invitation to attend meeting
 
 The Health Research Authority have recently completed a large patient and public engagement exercise and would like to feed back the findings to patients and interested members of the public.  
 
The workshops covered a range of issues including their perceptions of health research, consent, patient and public involvement in research, the research approval process and how it might be streamlined in the future, the publication of research findings and what information should be given to patients at the end of a study together with how the HRA should engage in the future with the patients and the public.
 
The public workshops  were conducted by Ipsos MORI, whilst the patient workshops were facilitated by the HRA.  Ipsos MORI also conducted a face to face survey of over 1,200 adults for the HRA. The work was supported and part funded by Sciencewise.
 
There are 3 meetings planned:
 
19th September 2013 – Skipton House, Elephant & Castle, London
 
23rd September 2013 – Barlow House, 4 Minshull Street, Manchester
 
25th September 2013 – Royal Station Hotel, Newcastle upon Tyne.
 
All sessions will include:
• A presentation and discussion of the findings of the public dialogue work
• Feedback on how the findings are being implemented
• An opportunity to see and comment on future HRA plans including how our new Patient and Public Involvement Strategy.
Lunch will be available at all 3 meetings from 12.30 pm and the sessions will run from 1 – 4 pm.
 
Delegates can claim their travel expenses and a fee of £50 for their time from the HRA.
 
 Places for this event are limited so please reserve a place with Gavin Crump (Email: gavin.crump@nhs.net)