GET INVOLVED
Strong and effective Public and Community Involvement, Engagement and Participation (P&CIEP) is central to ensuring that our ARC NWC programme is relevant to the needs of patients and the public in our diverse local communities. We will ensure that our findings inform decision-making and changes to practice that increase the sustainability of our health and care systems and deliver improvements in outcomes locally and nationally.
The ARC NWC P&CIEP strategy builds on our strong track-record of collaborative working with members of the public and communities in our region. There are 144 Public/Community Advisers registered and active in CLAHRC NWC, many of whom co-developed this bid. Community involvement is embedded within the CLAHRC NWC Neighbourhood Resilience Programme. Our Community Research and Engagement Network (CoREN) includes >70 Resident Advisers co-producing research in our ten Neighbourhoods for Learning (NsfL, demographically diverse areas of significant socio-economic disadvantages).
Our mature P&CIEP infrastructure includes regular, well-attended meetings of the Public Adviser Forum (PAF), split into three activity-focused subgroups: Governance; Communications; Adviser Experience and The Health Inequality Sub Group. Our co-developed Public Engagement strategy and policies are periodically reviewed by the PAF, including efficient and effective procedures for paying fees and expenses (following INVOLVE guidelines). These systems have evolved, informed by effective reviews (using the MRC Public Involvement Assessment Framework (PiiAF Popay, Whitehead). As our P&CIEP has grown, both in overall numbers and breadth of engagement through a ‘Hub/Core and Spoke/Partners’ network approach that developed as CLAHRC NWC programmes grew, we have involved an increasing number and diversity of Public/Community Advisers.
The overarching aims of our P&CIEP activities are to co-develop and deliver the aims and objectives of ARC- NWC and its Themes, in particular:
• Ensuring the relevance of the work programme to all regional areas, particularly those with significant health needs
• Developing and demonstrating our approach to local action on social determinants of health and ‘place- based’ integrated health and social care
• Co-producing evidence-based research and implementation that delivers improvements in health and social care, focussed on equity
• Disseminating learning and impact stories locally and nationally
