The Public Involvement Front Door: a new online resource for researchers

We are pleased to announce the launch of the Public Involvement Front Door, a new online resource developed by the NIHR North West London Patient Safety Research Collaboration (PSRC) to help researchers navigate, improve, and embrace public involvement.

The Public Involvement Front Door combines a values-based approach with practical tips and resources to open up the world of public involvement and empower researchers of all disciplines and experience levels to meaningfully involve public members in their work.

This project is funded by NIHR SafetyNet, and throughout the site you will find guidance specific to the challenges faced in patient safety research, and well as case studies of projects where patients and public members have been safely and meaningfully involved in patient safety research.

Why did we create the site?

There is growing interest from researchers to involve patients, carers, and the public in their research, as well as a growing expectation from funders to do so. Public involvement professionals hold a wealth of knowledge and experience around how to do this but are often over capacity and may lack the time needed to give researchers tailored support.

We designed this site to be a first port of call for public involvement support. Concise, user-friendly, and full of practical advice and resources, we hope the site helps researchers feel empowered to carry out meaningful and high-quality public involvement with appropriate safeguarding.

Public involvement may feel overwhelming to some researchers who are trying to navigate a plethora of information online or feeling like they are on their own and starting from scratch. Through this site, we hope to encourage more researchers to involve the public in their work and we believe the site will free up capacity for public involvement teams to provide tailored support where needed. It could also allow more time for public involvement practitioners to develop novel public involvement methodologies and strengthen their work with underserved communities.

We also felt it was important to take a values-based approach when creating the site. We know that, when done in a meaningful, equitable, and sustainable manner, public involvement can help research institutions achieve a more democratic and community-led form of knowledge production. A positive experience for everyone involved fosters deeper and more trusting community relationships, which can lead to greater diversity among those getting involved and taking part in research.

However, without the right mindset, resources, and support, public involvement can become tokenistic or even unsafe, with public members having little to no influence on projects and having negative or even harmful experiences. Public involvement can also become extractive, with researchers benefitting more than or at the expense of public members, which can lead to further distrust of research and a lack of future engagement.

So, when creating the content for this site, envisioned a world in which public involvement:

• Occurs with intention;
• Moves at the speed of trust;
• Shifts power; and
• Allows people to learn from mistakes.

You can read more about our values-based approach here.

How did we create the site?

To ensure the site was as relevant and user-friendly as possible, we consistently sought researcher input throughout the design process.

At the start of the project, we interviewed ten researchers to understand what information and resources would be most useful. The researchers we spoke to had varying levels of seniority and public involvement experience, and they offered a wide range of insights which informed the structure and format of the site.

Researchers told us they wanted guidance around inclusive recruitment and involvement, working with groups who might be more vulnerable to harm or exploitation through research, and reflecting on the impact of public involvement. They also stressed the importance of keeping the content clear and concise and asked for quick visuals and downloadable resources to support their public involvement activities.

We worked with UX and UI designer Pip Batey to achieve this, learning from her inclusive and human-centred approach to design. We also had two public partners in the team: Asmahan Al Nidawi, a Patient Safety Partner at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, and Jan Speechley, a Lay Leader with the Yorkshire and Humber PSRC.

Asmahan and Jan played an integral role in defining what meaningful public involvement looks like and helped ensure that the ‘why’ behind public involvement was central to the content we developed.

“Without public involvement, there is no view of experience from the people most affected by your research. Public involvement is a skill to be learned, its value is huge, and the difference made to research is grounded in the lives of real people.” – Jan

“For me, meaningful public involvement is about making sure everyone has a chance to take part, no matter their background or experience. It’s about bringing in different voices, so the results are more useful to a wider range of people.” – Asmahan

Asmahan and Jan shared tips and personal experiences which can be found throughout the site. They also encouraged us to be honest about what hasn’t worked well in the past, so that others can learn from these experiences and improve best practice in public involvement going forward.

We have included impact case studies from the Midlands, Newcastle, and North West London PSRCs to showcase the impact that patients and public members have had on patient safety research, and to reflect on any challenges that arose and discuss how these were overcome. We plan to update these impact case studies annually to ensure we are highlighting the latest best practice and innovations in public involvement within patient safety research.

Once we had a working prototype of the site, we carried out five user testing sessions to make sure the content was relevant, the design was accessible, and the site was easy to navigate. Based on feedback from these sessions, we added: dropdowns to the navigation bar to help users know what to expect on each page; prioritised graphics and illustrations over large blocks of text; and added ‘about us’ and ‘contact us’ pages to the site.

We also presented a draft version of the site to the public involvement leads and equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) leads from across SafetyNet to gather feedback and improve the site before the public launch. From this, we were able to add valuable advice and guidance around the specific challenges faced when involving public members in patient safety research.

This has been a two-year collaborative effort between public involvement professionals, researchers, designers, and public members, and we are excited to be able to share the site with the world.

How can you use the site?

The Public Involvement Front Door is designed to support you throughout your public involvement journey. The site is split into five stages, allowing you to easily jump to the content most relevant to you at any given moment:

1. Understanding public involvement: Learn about what public involvement is, why it matters, and how it can help your research.
2. Planning your involvement: Plan the who, what, when, where, and how of your public involvement – plus consider how much time and money you’ll need and how you’ll track impact throughout the project.
3. Reaching public members: Explore how to engage with communities and form reciprocal relationships with community organisations to reach public members and involve diverse groups in your work.
4. Involving public members: Understand how to support public members leading up to, during, and after an activity, including tips on how to safeguard public members and yourself.
5. Disseminating your findings: Consider how you will share your findings with the public members you involved and how they can help you share those findings with the wider public.

Throughout the site, you’ll find general guidance, graphics and illustrations, tips from public members, and frequently asked questions. You can also visit the Resource Hub for easy access to the many downloadable resources found across the site.

We hope that the Public Involvement Front Door will be a useful resource for researchers and healthcare professionals hoping to carry out meaningful public involvement. We’d love to hear how the site has helped you with your work, and we’re always open to feedback and suggestions on how we can improve the resource. To get in touch, please contact us here.