Cancer Prevention Group
Patient and Public Involvement
What is PPI (Patient and Public Involvement) ?
Researchers know about different health conditions, and how to treat them, but most will not have lived through them. The benefits of research may also be different for people with different backgrounds or lived experiences. Including a wide variety of perspectives from patients and members of the public on the design and running of research fills the gaps in understanding and helps improve the quality of research.
Being involved is not the same as taking part in a research project as a participant.
Here are some of the differences:
Participant in a research project
being interviewed
taking part in a focus group
completing a survey
taking part in a clinical trial of a new treatment
Patient and public involvement
helping to decide on the interview questions
helping to design surveys
discussing how to encourage people to take part in studies
taking part in group discussions
Reading and commenting on study documentation e.g. Patient letters, patient information sheet
What does patient and public involvement in the Cancer Prevention Group look like?
The CPG runs a wide range of studies on cancer screening and prevention. You can find out more about the group and our projects here.
For our research to be effective we have to consider different people’s backgrounds, values and needs. One of the best ways for us to do this is to work in partnership with different members of the public when planning and undertaking our research.
When we start a new project, we aim to have input from patient and public contributors from the very outset. Generally, each project will include between 2 and 5 patients or members of the public (known as Project PPI contributors) who are involved at all stages of the project. Giving input may include joining team meetings or discussions, giving feedback on study documents, and deciding how to share study findings with the public. This allows us to understand and incorporate the views, experiences, and expectations of the general public into how we are working to prevent cancer. Project PPI contributors receive relevant research training, and are compensated for their time.
We are also creating a Patient and Public Involvement Panel. This will be a group of 5 to 10 patients and members of the public with diverse backgrounds. The Panel will meet 3 times per year to help inform the strategic direction of the group and answer research questions from across the projects of the CPG. All panel members will also receive research training and compensation for their time.
You can read about our current open opportunities here.
What to Expect
When you sign up using our expression of interest form, you will be added to our database. When a relevant project or opportunity comes up, we will reach out to you by your preferred contact method. We may also send out individual questions by email, where we have brief issues that would be helpful to have lots of feedback on.
You may not be contacted for some time or you may be contacted for multiple projects. You are welcome to accept as many invitations as you have time and interest for. We will do our best to invite everyone to get involved at some point.
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