It doesn’t matter where you are in the world patients and carers have the same questions about research.

This week I am in Sydney, Australia, at the invitation of the Australia Dementia Forum hosted by the National Institute for Dementia Research.  It has been a fascinating two days. Most of all I have enjoyed meeting consumers (as they tend to be called here) – people with dementia and carers – and hearing their voices throughout the conference proceedings.

Yesterday I sat on a panel answering audience questions about the translation of research into practice. It’s a big issue in research generally. It’s a bugbear for patients, and carers – taxpayers – wherever I go. ‘Why don’t you do more to make sure that research findings are implemented and adopted?’ they ask. And well they might.

It just so happens that the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) has announced an open competition to run what are being called ‘Applied Research Collaborations’ (NIHR ARCs) ‘for applied health and care research and to support implementation of research into practice, making tangible improvements for patients, the public and to health and care services.’ 

ARCs will follow on from where the current Collaborations for Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRCs) leave off towards the end of 2019. They are good news from a public perspective ensuring a continued focus on implementation.

As I have  written before on this blog I have always been a big fan of the CLAHRCs and of the public involvement teams and communities that have coalesced around them. The public involvement work they have done since their inception as pilot organisations in 2008 has been of national if not international standing. Some of the innovations that have come out of them are exemplars of public involvement generally.

So I am delighted that the NIHR commitment to ARCs meants continuity of focus on the important theme of implementation. But what I am most pleased about is that the specification for the new the ARCs also embraces  the learning and priorities for patient and public involvement to emerge from the CLAHRC experience, the ‘Going the Extra Mile’ strategic review and NIHR wider strategy refresh. An increased focus on: diversity and inclusion; community-led research and new methods. As well as aligning things with the new PPI standards.

The following Q&A from the official documentation highlights the key differences between ARCs and CLAHRCs in terms of public involvement:

………The requirement to provide a strategy for public involvement,
engagement and participation remains unchanged from the NIHR
CLAHRC and other NIHR infrastructure schemes.

What’s different?
For NIHR ARCs, there is a greater emphasis on ‘community’ to ensure
that their plans reflect the diversity of the local population, foster
community-led approaches to research, as well as developing new
methods and approaches to public and community involvement,
engagement and participation. NIHR ARCs will also be expected to
consider the six national standards for public involvement in research,
which were published in 2018…….

These are important strategic signals which the public involvement community needs to embrace as opportunities to take things to a new level; as a chance to bring new thinking and approaches to bear upon some perennial issues.