Have your say in shaping health research and services across Greater Essex by getting involved in the HDRC Public Involvement Network.
What is the Greater Essex HDRC Public Involvement Network?
The Health Determinants Research Collaboration (HDRC) Greater Essex helps local authorities better carry out and use research to shape policies and services to improve people’s health. They want local communities’ needs and priorities to shape this work, and to do this they want to connect with a range of community groups and forums across Essex. The Public Involvement Network will take the form of a directory of community groups, voluntary organisations, residents’ panels, and engagement forums that are interested in shaping health research and policy in Greater Essex. We are looking for groups who are interested in being listed on this directory, as well as for community leaders who would like to sit on a working group to tell us about how researchers, commissioners and policy makers can best engage with their community and understand their group’s needs.
Why is it important?
The HDRC wants communities to be involved in projects that may affect or benefit them. Researchers, commissioners, and policy makers want to know what is important to you: what you think they should prioritise, how they should talk to and engage with your community, and how they should take what they find and put it into practice. Involving communities in this way helps them to understand the needs and challenges that different groups have, particularly those who are often underrepresented or excluded from decision-making.
How can I get involved?
Join our Communities Working Group
We’re looking for representatives from community groups to join our Communities Working Group. This will involve taking part in a series of workshops to share your thoughts on how researchers can understand and engage with your community and how the Public Involvement Directory should work.
Join our Public Involvement Directory
Add your community group to our directory to allow researchers, commissioners and policy makers to find and connect with your group. Once your group is added to the directory, approved researchers will be able to search for and find your group, and approach you to ask if you or your members would be interested in an opportunity. There’s no obligation to take part in every opportunity that arises. We’re hoping that the directory will include:
- Community-based peer support groups (particularly those championing the lived experiences of underrepresented communities, those affected by health inequalities, and forums reflecting those with protected characteristics).
- Condition-specific groups (relating to health and care).
- Faith groups and networks.
- Local authority engagement structures and initiatives (county and district level).
- NHS and public health involvement groups (e.g. patient experience groups).
- Social issue groups (grounded in the lived experiences of its members).
- Resident panels/place-based forums.
- Voluntary sector organisations, including those who provide infrastructure support.
What will the Communities Working Group involve?
The Communities Working Group will involve attending a series of meetings and workshops to share your views on what the Public Involvement Directory should look like, how it should be used, and how researchers should engage with your community. The Working Group will work towards creating an Engagement Charter – an accessible document for community groups and researchers that will help communities understand what being added to the directory will involve, and guide how researchers engage with the directory.
You’ll share your thoughts on:
- How researchers and professionals should engage with your group
- Accessibility requirements
- Payment and reimbursement standards
- How you would prefer to report and escalate concerns
- Training that you or your community require in order to feel confident engaging with researchers
- How you would like to share feedback on taking part in the Public Involvement Network
The Communities Working Group will meet four times over the first six months of the project, then quarterly for the next two years. We’ll be running a similar working group with researchers, policy makers and commissioners to understand their views on what they want from the Public Involvement Network and what support they need to engage with groups in the directory.
What happens once my group has been added to the directory?
Once your group has been added to the directory, researchers, commissioners, service designers, and policymakers will be able to search for and contact your group to share opportunities for members of your group to inform research, commissioning decisions, service design, or policy development. You may also be contacted by Healthwatch Essex with updates from the Public Involvement Network, opportunities to share feedback on your experience, opportunities to review the network’s guidance and charters, and to check your information remains up-to-date.
How will being involved benefit our group?
By being involved in the Communities Working Groups, you have a chance to shape how researchers engage with your community and how the network runs. By being added to the register, you’ll ensure that researchers can easily get in touch with your group.
It’s important that health research, policy and commissioning take the experiences of a wide range of communities into account in order to ensure that health care and policy are equitable – by being involved with the HDRC Public Involvement Network, you’ll ensure that your community has a chance to feed in to how research is designed, carried out, and communicated, and how this informs policies and services in Essex.
Click here to register your interest: HDRC Greater Essex Public Involvement Network – Registration of Interest