By Al Richards, HPRU Community Panel Member

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A co-produced workshop held in March brought together a range of people lived/learned experience from academia, services, charities/community organisations and policymakers.

We worked together as a group of UCL research and public engagement staff and people with lived experience (two HPRU community partners and one Co-Producer from the Co-Production Collective) to co-produce the workshop agenda, activities and evaluation. We met online for three meetings over a course of one month to plan the day.

We had not worked together before so team building exercises including icebreakers (e.g. what is your favourite food) were important. These allowed us to explore our commonalities and differences. It was an important exercise to happen at each meeting to feel psychologically safe to give our true and honest opinions. We were building relationships, connecting and making life-long work relationships in these meetings.

What was our aim?

The aim of the day was to reflect on how patient/public involvement (PPI) is currently being conducted and identify where evaluation of PPI can support the HPRU. We wanted to inspire people that PPI is not a one-size-fits-all approach and to begin to build new collaborations and connections across sectors and organisations. Ideally, we hoped that attendees would begin evaluating and measuring the impact of their own PPI activity. 

The objectives of the event were to: 

• Interpret findings from a desk review on various frameworks to evaluate PPI and/or co-production

• Identify measures and outcomes for evaluating PPI

• Co-produce a stakeholder map 

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What did we do on the day?

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1. Defining co-production and our values

First, we spoke about co-production and defined it according to organisational definitions but also what it meant for us. It felt important being on the receiving end of what co-production looks like compared to an organisation that does it very differently and how we want to be respected, valued and ways of working including reasonable adjustments. You will meet and work with different people with different sets of criteria and needs in co-production, so you need to try to cater to everyone to work together more cohesively.

Specifically, co-production can be understood as an ‘approach to working together in equal partnership and for equal benefit’. We defined our values of co-production (which were guided by our collaborators - the Co-Production Collective) to be:

     •   Reflective

     •   Kind

     •   Transparent Inclusive

     •   Embracing of change

     •   Trust; respecting boundaries; relationships(added at workshop)

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2. World Café activity: PPI evaluation frameworks

We then discussed the most common PPI evaluation frameworks, identified through a desk review, in small groups during a World Café activity where each table was facilitated by a member of the project team (including me): 

     • Guidance for Reporting Involvement of Patients and the Public (GRIPP2) 

The GRIPP2 is an international framework designed to improve the quality, transparency, and consistency of reporting Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) in research. It provides standardised checklists to ensure comprehensive documentation of PPI activities.

     • Public and Patient Engagement Evaluation Tool (PPEET) 

(PPEET) is a comprehensive tool designed to evaluate the quality and impact of public and patient engagement activities in health system organisations. It helps organisations assess their engagement processes and outcomes from multiple perspectives.

     • Public Involvement Impact Assessment Framework (PiiAF) 

PiiAF is a tool designed to help organisations assess the impact of public involvement in research and decision-making processes. It provides a structured approach to evaluate how public engagement influences outcomes, policies and practices.

     • Cube evaluation framework

The CUBE Evaluation Framework is a tool designed to assess the effectiveness of Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) in research and development processes. It helps organisations evaluate how well PPI is integrated and its impact on outcomes.

Although all these frameworks were identified through a desk review, I had not come across them before, so I reflected on how common are these frameworks really? When we think about the impact of going through these frameworks, I reflected on what stood out for me and what also did not have an impact. Some tools were developed with specific audiences in mind (e.g. organisations, researchers, PPI teams, people with lived experience). For the framework I looked at (Cube), I reflected that this suited PPI activities better than GRIPP2 which appears to be aimed more at researchers. As a whole group, we reflected on the various elements of each framework which could betaken and put together to build a more bespoke version for projects.

3. Co-producing a stakeholder power/influence matrix

Our second activity involved creating a stakeholder matrix(or power/influence matrix) in small groups. We discussed an important question: Who does the HPRU currently engage with? Who is missing/who should they be engaging with? We also reflected on the limitations of this matrix approach and how a transformational approach shifting traditional power imbalances would ensure all voices are heard and listened to in a fair and equitable way.

To view all the tables’ matrices, please view the summary report.

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4. Pledge tree activity

Our last activity was a Pledge Tree and people who attended were encouraged to write a Pledge that they would do and be contacted in 3months to follow up on progress made. I felt this was a really important exercise especially for organisations to keep the workshop in mind knowing they would be contacted afterwards and would be held to account.

Overall, I believe the workshop was really well designed and a lot was in part due to the meetings we had to organise the day. Our project team gelled really well, with each of us fulfilling our specific roles, and we collaborated seamlessly despite having only met online. The conversation flowed and all the team building exercises we took part in to organise the workshop came to fruition with the way we conducted the workshop and given the chance to facilitate discussions. We all had equal power on our tables, equal talking rights and despite having a set schedule, we could all put our hand up and contribute. The project felt like true co-production in action, and I really felt like we made a difference to all the organisations that attended the workshop.

Further resources:

     •   Summary report (including desk review findings).

     •   Reflections from another HPRU Community Panel member, Tracy.

Acknowledgements:

We would like to thank all attendees to the workshop in March and the project team involved in co-producing the workshop.

This project was made possible through funding received from the 2024 NIHR Infrastructure/School Pre-Application Support Fund.

For further information about this project, please contact Vas at vasiliki.papageorgiou@ucl.ac.uk