I am sure you can imagine the following scenario even if you haven't witnessed it in person. A football game is poised delicately at 0:0. The home side get the ball and give it to their striker who dribbles past the away side's last defender. The striker has only the goalkeeper to beat and surely … Continue reading Are we being cynical enough in public involvement?

Family doctors say they are being swamped by patients complaining of disruptive innovation disease (DID). Employers have raised concerns over £000s that they might have to pay out in compensation to sufferers who complain they DID it. But practical help may be just around the corner for these people and their families. I am about … Continue reading Are you a victim of disruptive innovation? Call now.

You can't beat a good juxtaposition. And August seems to throw up more than its fair share. It's as if the soil, hard-packed by hardened hacks over many months, has been freshly tilled by novice reporters, revealing pearl white fragments of porcelain that say as much about now, as then. This is the slow news … Continue reading The low hum of mediocrity can never be acceptable to patients

Last week, at the INVOLVE meeting for NIHR public involvement leads, a colleague asked me whether our strategic review would get near to a national strategy. I said I was pretty confident it would. Otherwise what's the point. You can see a copy of my presentation slides inducing an overview of the review findings here … Continue reading Canada takes a whole-system approach to public involvement in research

Before I start is anyone else struck by the similarities between the hysteria of some science commentators over the new Science Minister, Greg Clark's, signing of an EDM about homeopathy in 2007. And the reaction of the enslaved and brainwashed monsters in Monsters Inc to being touched by a child or even just their clothing … Continue reading It’s the citizen, stupid!

You may recall a few weeks ago the new NHS Chief Executive, Simon Stevens, referring to patients and carers as the 'renewable energy' in health and social care. A good notion. A noble notion. Yet I am having far too many conversations at the moment which are with, or about, colleagues who are flat-out exhausted … Continue reading Patients as renewable energy? We’re bloody knackered Simon.

I listened to the radio this morning with rising irritation. Two scientists were locked in debate over the EU Human Brain Project. Yes, it would be farcical if not true, but the EU (including us I presume as an EU member state) is pumping huge amounts of money into a hair-brained idea to replicate what … Continue reading The double standard in research that holds public engagement back

Some time ago I took part in an event where the organisers thought it would be a good idea to try something new.As well as the usual plenary speakers and workshops, we were going to get people there to text and tweet questions which speakers and panellists could answer during the day. Sounded perfectly laudable … Continue reading Blog: public involvement is not built on one-night stands

3 million patients have been recruited to clinical trials over the past six years. That was the impressive bit of news put out by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Clinical Research Networks yesterday. You may have heard its Chief Executive, Jonathan Sheffield, on local radio talking about we have got here and the … Continue reading 3 million and rising: the secret to recruiting more patients to trials could lie in better training for doctors and nurses

Most of my friends and family are often staggered at how complex we have made this supposedly simple thing called public involvement? How did we end up creating something with more wiring and circuitry than the first computer? Who is going to design the first public involvement microchip that reduces this tangle to something we … Continue reading Sorry, did I go off? Do patients have a use by date in research?

It was a miserable York City Centre that I walked through late last night to get to my hotel. All the hopes and anticipation of early evening had dissolved on a football pitch halfway across the world. A dull and sullen murmur was all that was left. Never mind. We still have Masterchef. Or Celebrity … Continue reading Public involvement in research: what sort of Masterchef are you?

Last night I was getting ready for this evening's 'Order, Chaos, and Chronic Illness' event at the Theatre Royal, York. 300 people will be joining me to hear leading poets, Simon Armitage, Gillian Clarke and Blake Morrison, read their work and discuss the relationship between poetry and illness. Part of York's Festival of Ideas it … Continue reading Gloves off: poetry gets to the heart of the matter when it comes to illness