Clinicians and research staff from across England and Wales attended patient and public involvement (PPI) training delivered by the BRC at UCLH between April 2021 and March 2022.
Research staff from Manchester, York, Leicester, Exeter and Cardiff were among those who signed up to take part in training sessions on running patient and public engagement events, how to find patient partners, and how PPI improves the quality of research.
Training also reached the continent, with participation from Switzerland.
An analysis of the last financial year revealed that a total of 410 participants from centres across the UK took part in 54 PPI workshops at UCLH. Since 2014 the BRC has trained over 1,000 researchers in PPI.
The BRC runs PPI training workshops throughout the year. Evaluation shows that the sessions successfully build up researchers’ skills in involving lay people in activities including setting research priorities and designed research study protocols.
An evaluation of the BRC’s PPI workshops was published in the BMJ Open in 2021.
Patience Renias-Zuva, the BRC’s PPI manager, said: “When the pandemic started we moved our training online, and this has had the benefit that we can now offer training to staff anywhere in the country. We are actively reaching out to centres across the UK to encourage researchers to attend.”
Patients and members of the public who are interested in getting involved in research can now access the BRC’s ‘PPI hub’ – where the public can find opportunities to input into research and access news and resources.
