What the HRC in Emergency and Acute Care can do for you – Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) support
Daniel Taylor, Engagement and Involvement Specialist for the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) HealthTech Research Centre (HRC) in Emergency and Acute Care shares the importance of involving patient and public partners’ lived experiences, to shape new health innovations – and how our HRC can help innovators and industry partners in this process.
The HRC in Emergency and Acute Care enables the health and care system to innovate at pace and scale. It brings innovators together with diverse expertise to co-develop technologies and generate the evidence required to achieve their adoption.
Exploring and involving different expertise supports the development of impactful technologies, that are more relevant and usable, and therefore more likely to be adopted.
As our HRC’s Involvement and Engagement Specialist, it’s my role to support industry, public contributors, and researchers to shape new innovations in equal partnership with each other. I also lead on the involvement of the public and patients at all levels of our own work.
What is public patient involvement?
The NIHR defines public and patient involvement in research as: “Research being carried out ‘with’ or ‘by’ members of the public rather than ‘to’, ‘about’ or ‘for’ them…an active partnership between patients, carers and members of the public with researchers that influences and shapes research.”
Our focus within the HRC in Emergency and Acute Care is very much on facilitating active partnerships that demonstrably shape technologies. To do this, relevant public and patient contributors are integrated into the delivery and adoption of innovation, and involved and supported to make meaningful contributions to influence the direction and application of new technologies.
How this looks in practice can vary according to the innovation, the people involved and the context. Sometimes regular advisory groups and events such as community sandpits and patient days are arranged; as are creative collaborations and taking part in communal community activities.
Our HRC can help identify the most appropriate areas to work together with public and patient partners to positively impact the development and implementation of a technology. We use this understanding to support industry partners in planning how to bring relevant people together, including those who may face barriers to engagement.
Rachel Corry is a public contributor to the PALOH (Pharmacogenetics to Avoid Loss of Hearing) project, which developed a world-first genetic test at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (MFT), that can prevent critically ill newborn babies usually treated with a common antibiotic, from going deaf. She saw the benefit of PPIE first hand and now Co-Chairs the HRC in Emergency and Acute Care PPIE External Advisory Board.
She said: “PPIE is essential for the development of user friendly and effective health solutions. The HRC in Emergency and Acute Care recognises just how important it is to involve people who will be at the receiving end of healthcare innovations, which will help shape the future of health technology and healthcare for the benefit of others.”
How can PPIE help you?
Evidencing how public involvement has been meaningful and impactful can strengthen business cases for innovation, by demonstrating the steps taken to address real world challenges and end-user usability and acceptability.
A long-term PPIE approach allows patient and public partnerships to be embedded at key stages of development, building effective relationships and practices over time. It also supports robust evidence and planning for funding, certification, and NHS commissioning.
All major health research funders require meaningful PPIE as part of applications and evidence of activity is required or requested across the development pipeline.
In particular, in relation to the regulation of innovative technologies: “The introduction of the EU’s Medical Devices Regulation (MDR) 2017/745 CE standard and the NHS’ Digital Technology Assessment Criteria, now makes continuous PPIE part of the body of evidence submitted to regulatory authorities through Notified Bodies and the NHS DTAC assessment for entry into NHS procurement.”
What support can we offer?
People and their experiences are at the heart of what we do, and we require PPIE as part of all collaborative projects within the HRC in Emergency and Acute Care. All industry partners working with our HRC, are expected to answer questions about how public involvement can be integrated in projects.
To help, we offer focused support for PPIE in partnership with Vocal, who specialise in bringing people and research together for everyone’s benefit.
We can offer advice to industry collaborators from initial enquiry, including:
- Providing advice for developing PPIE in initial planning and grant applications.
- Support the delivery of PPIE activity for collaborative projects.
- Through the development of industry-specific guidance and training.
- Signposting to relevant support and resources available.
- Exploring other areas where we can provide support, that is bespoke to your project.
Please contact: HRC-Emergency@mft.nhs.uk for more information about our PPIE advice and support.
Further industry specific guidance from Boehringer Ingelheim and the NIHR have extensive guidance, national commitments and UK Standards for Involvement.
The full NIHR HRC in Emergency and Acute Care Strategy for public partnerships is available on our website and we will soon be publishing the Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust PPIE Principles for Innovation.