Originally launched in 2018, the UK Standards for Public Involvement were designed to demonstrate what good public involvement in Health and Social Care research looks like.
The Six UK Standards are:
- Inclusive Opportunities
- Working Together
- Support and Learning
- Governance
- Communications
- Impact
Health and Social Care Research and Development (HSC R&D) were involved in the original development of the Standards, and recently led on a newly published article entitled ‘Applying the UK Standards for Public Involvement: Reflections and lessons from case studies across the UK’.
The comment article reflects on three applied case examples at national, regional, and study-level to illustrate how the Standards have been implemented across the UK. The case studies show that the UK Standards for Public Involvement continue to provide a practical framework for planning, delivering and reflecting on public involvement activities.
Moving forward, the call to action for the research community is to not ‘reinvent the wheel’ and develop new standards or principles, but rather build on the strong foundation the Standards have provided and prospectively use, promote and embed them into the health and social care research. One such example is the the Public Involvement in Research Impact Toolkit (PIRIT) which uses the Standards as a framework for a public involvement planning tool, and a tool to track the impact of public involvement activities within a research project. Health and Care Research Wales have also partnered with research teams in different countries to translate the Standards into Japanese and Portuguese. This call to action also aligns with the outcomes of Involvement Matters, a project led by HSC R&D to identify recommendations for action to strengthen PPI in Northern Ireland, which highlighted the need to proactively promote and signpost to existing resources and guidance.
As a funder of research, HSC R&D use and actively promote the use of the Standards in the following ways:
- A dedicated webpage for the Standards with links to useful resources, and inclusion of the Standards in the PPI Resource Library for Researchers.
- Development of communications, for example, a blog with the Cerebral Palsy research team at Queen’s University Belfast, an original text bed site for the Standards.
- Referencing the Standards in researcher guidance and application forms for funding schemes, encouraging researchers to reflect on the Standards when completing questions in relation to plans for Personal and Public Involvement (PPI).
- Development of a guidance document on how to use the Standards when planning for PPI activities or initiatives.
- Referencing the Standards in reporting templates for HSC R&D awardees, encouraging awardees to reflect on the Standards when reporting on PPI activities.
- Development of guidance document on PPI reporting for HSC R&D awardees that aligns with the Standards.
- Including the Standards in the PPI training delivered by HSC R&D.
- As the basis for Annual PPI Action plans, with actions framed around plans specific Standards such as Working Together, Impact and Governance.
It is clear that the UK Standards for Public Involvement continue to provide a valuable framework for PPI in Health and Social Care research, and can be used to inform the expectations of research funders in terms of best practice.
HSC R&D encourage the research community with Northern Ireland to continue to use the Standards when planning for PPI, reflecting on what has went well and what could be better. Public contributors or people who want to get involved in research in the future can also use the Standards to understand what support they should expect, and what good quality PPI looks like.
For further information, please contact Dr Janet Diffin (Senior R&D Programme Manager): Janet.Diffin@hscni.net