The Shared Commitment to Public Involvement  

Public involvement is important, expected, and possible in all types of health and social care research. 

Together our organisations and members fund, support and regulate health and social care research. This statement is our joint commitment to improve the extent and quality of public involvement across the sector so that it is consistently excellent. 

People have the right to be involved in all health and social care research. Excellent public involvement is an essential part of health and social care research and has been shown to improve its quality and impact. People’s lived experiences should be a key driver for health and social care research. 

When we talk about public involvement, we mean all the ways in which the research community works together with people including patients, carers, advocates, service users, and members of the community. 

Excellent public involvement is inclusive, values all contributions, ensures people have a meaningful say in what happens and influences outcomes, as set out in the UK Standards for Public Involvement. 

Working together we will support the research community to carry out excellent public involvement. We will provide or share guidance, policies, systems, and incentives. 

We will: 

• listen to and learn from the people and communities we involve and apply and share that learning 

• build and share the evidence of how to involve the public and the impact this has 

• support improvements in equality, diversity, and inclusion in public involvement 

• promote the UK Standards for Public Involvement. 

• We will embed this commitment into the decision-making processes of our organisations. 

NHRP exists to improve health, reduce health inequalities and generate economic growth through research, training and education that leverages the combined strength of our partners. One of three pillars of our strategy is our Public Partnerships workstream, which aims to build patent and public involvement in our research, and embed this in the core of our practices and lead on innovative initiatives. As part of our own commitment, NHRP will: 

• Ensure public contributors are involved in our partnership’s decision making through our Public Partner Oversight Committee (PPOC). Members of the PPOC consist of patients, carers and the public form across our NHRP’s partner organisations. They help shape NHRP public partnership strategic and action plan priorities  

• Through the Public Partnership Training Programme, we provide training, guidance and real-life examples to develop skillset and knowledge to better embed patient and public involvement and research inclusion practice. Public contributors develop and  deliver sessions and are also part of the working group    

• Develop, share and advocate for good practice in patient and public involvement through our support for the delivery and development of Creating Connections. We will encourage and celebrate excellent involvement and support in our partnership and local networks 

• Work with our PPIE strategic leads in our partner organisations to collaborate and develop initiatives within our organisations for a more coordinated and consistent approach to public partnership