Patient and Public Involvement and leadership in innovation

We are experts at involving patients and members of the public in the co-design and production of innovation and transformation and strive to ensure our programmes are underpinned by service user input.

This year we have prioritised our internal programmes and have also supported 62 healthcare partners and commercial innovators, offering advice and guidance to ensure patients and communities voice are heard in health service innovation and transformation.

Our support ranges from advice and guidance, webinars and ‘how to’ guides, to a free Public Face newsletter, a PPI Resource Hub and access to a network of experienced patient and citizen leaders.

Testimonial

Emily Steventon, Senior Programme Manager – Stroke Quality Improvement for Rehabilitation (SQuIRe) NHS England

I attended the East Midlands Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) Senate to seek guidance on integrating PPI into an NHS England regional community stroke rehabilitation improvement and transformation programme. Senate members were generous in sharing insights and honest feedback and their feedback has significantly enriched my approach to setting up and delivering healthcare initiatives.

Their valuable suggestions have not only been incorporated into ongoing projects but have also disseminated across our team, amplifying the learning beyond my immediate scope.

Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland (LLR ICB) engagement scoping.

We successfully completed our first external PPI commission for LLR ICB, which involved scoping PPI activity across the LLR healthcare system. This work will inform further work to improve research uptake of underserved communities.

I would like to thank Health Innovation East Midlands for your invaluable support for our project focused on mapping underserved community engagement across Leicester; your commitment to the project and professionalism have been truly commendable.

The approach taken was thorough, meticulous, and proactive and the final summary report delivered by the team surpassed our expectations.

Carly McDonald, Research Manager NHS Leicester, Leicestershire & Rutland ICB

Supporting regionwide PPI knowledge and capability

We issued 25 Public Face newsletters sharing cutting edge PPI related information, resources, and involvement opportunities, across our region and beyond.

We launched our online PPI Resource Hub, which hosts a suite of best practice downloadable resources, toolkits and templates across many topics to support PPI practitioners, organisations and patient leaders.

Learn more about Patient and Public Involvement

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Impacts

Our Patient Public Involvement Senate - which offers lived experience perspectives and independent guidance on inclusive PPI - has supported 24 healthcare, academic, research and innovation organisations.

They have:

  • Informed our Patient Safety Collaborative’s new commission.
  • Advised the Polypharmacy programme public facing information campaign and translations.
  • Guided East Midlands Imaging Service on how to engage underserved communities.
  • Informed training to improve CVD prevention communication with patients.
  • Informed public involvement opportunities in our Innovation Pipeline to embed 'What matters to patients' in all Innovation Exchanges.

We continue to escalate patient concerns nationally, such as darker skin colour in maternity and neonatal and wound care deterioration, and the use of monitoring technology in mental health inpatient settings, with a view to influencing action to address improvements.

Our public involvement contact list has increased from 88 members to 146 and continues to grow, enabling us to connect public contributors, including 44 patient leaders to our programmes and healthcare system.

Members have brought invaluable lived experience and insights in areas such as maternity and neonatal care, CVD, ethnicity and health, mental health, long term conditions, patient safety, remote monitoring, medicine safety and optimisation and polypharmacy, wound care and more.

We facilitated eight focus groups and face to face interviews and surveys engaging 76 patients and public members on their suggestions for CVD prevention, elective surgery pathway, mental health, and falls prevention.

Our Lived Experience Contributors in our Mental Health Safety Improvement Programme are actively involved in three Communities of Practice – suicide prevention, sexual safety and reducing restrictive practice. Our members co-designed and delivered events and workshops for 130 staff working across mental health services and co-designed surveys to improve care for people in inpatient settings. The PPI activity was nominated for a national Innovate Award.

Next Steps

  • Continue to strengthen and refresh our internal PPI forums by recruiting new and diverse members to our PPI Senate and Public Involvement Contacts.
  • Explore co-producing local guidance with patients and the public for innovators developing Artificial Intelligence solutions in healthcare ensuring patient views are embedded.
  • Support staff to deliver excellent and inclusive PPI in their work.