This HRA consultation has closed and is displayed for reference only.
The HRA published its strategy for public involvement in 2013 and in this consultation invited its partners and anyone else interested in its work to submit comments or feedback on the strategy.
The aims of our Public Involvement strategy are to:
- Improve the quality of decision making in the HRA by involving patients and the public in our own work, and
- Improve the quality of research the HRA approves by using our influence to ensure that more health research involves patients and the public.
We believe that involving patients and the public in health research will ensure it is relevant to the needs of patients and more likely to have an impact on their health and wellbeing.
Jim Elliott, HRA’s Public Involvement Lead, said
“Involving patients and the public in health research is not an optional extra. We already find the contributions of lay members invaluable on our Research Ethics Committees. Our workshops and surveys with patients and the public have demonstrated that they have an appetite for more involvement in our work, and in health research in general. We now need feedback on whether our plans can be refined to help us achieve the objectives set out in the strategy.”
Janet Wisely, Chief Executive of HRA, added
“The HRA has a role to promote and protect the interests of patients and the public in health research and we recognised when we were established in December 2011 that getting our engagement and involvement right was vital to our success. I am delighted that the work we have done to date has demonstrated our genuine commitment and has produced a strategy for involvement which I believe is both robust and achievable. It will ensure we continue to take very seriously our responsibilities to involve patients and the public effectively”.
The deadline for comments was 31st December 2013 and the action plan (and our strategy) reviewed at the start of 2014.
We set out some questions we were particularly interested in answering in relation to how we put our plan into action as well as welcomed comments on any other aspect of the strategy.