Public involvement
How we work in active partnerships with people with lived experience.
Public involvement is essential to meaningful health and care research and service improvement.
The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) says that public involvement is when research is carried out ‘with’ or ‘by’ members of the public, rather than ‘to’, ‘about’ or ‘for’ them.
We call people actively involved in health and care research and improvement ‘public contributors’. A public contributor can be a patient, service user, carer or anyone else with lived experience of a health condition or area.
In Bristol Health Partners, public contributors are:
- Health Integration Team (HIT) co-directors or team members. They help steer what the HIT works on and how, and act as a link to other groups with lived experience.
- members of the Board or Research and Innovation Steering Group. They ensure that public involvement is embedded in the partnership at a strategic level.
- members of the BNSSG diverse Research Engagement Network. They act as voices from under-served, racially-minoritised communities to improve inclusion in research.
Meet one of our public contributors
Soumeya is a public contributor to two Health Integration Teams, a member of the Research and Innovation Steering Group and member of the diverse Research Engagement Network.
"Joining Bristol Health Partners’ Research and Innovation Steering Group enabled me to amplify the voices of patients and challenge researchers by reminding them about what matters to patients."Soumeya Bouacida
Shared Commitment to public involvement
We have pledged to improve public involvement in health and social care research.
