The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) together with its equivalents across the other UK nations – the Chief Scientist’s Office in Scotland, Health and Care Research Wales, and Public Health Agency Northern Ireland – has been leading the development of UK national standards to improve the quality and consistency of public involvement.

The UK–wide partnership has its own dedicated website here where you can find out more about the development of the standards over the last 18 months.  Last summer there was a highly successful consultation on a first iteration of the standards which got 680 responses.  The results of this consultation were shared at the ‘INVOLVE at 21’ conference where delegates had a further opportunity to critique, shape and strengthen the proposed standards.

With the next version of the standards expected in March – around about the time that the ABPI/AMRC are hosting their ‘Patients First: Pioneering Partnerships’ conference (see workshop) – the partnership are now looking for people, groups, teams and organisations to run test bed projects from April 2018 until 2019.

The test bed projects will be putting the standards into practice in their own working environment and sharing their learning with others. Both the fellow test beds but also the wider community.

If you are interested in being a standard bearer and running one of these test bed projects you can find out more details here (the information sheet also includes contact addresses). And the expression of interest form can be found here.

The deadline for expressions of interest is Wednesday 14th February 2018 – Valentine’s Day!