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Your HRA public involvement newsletter

Edition eight, May 2023

Welcome to the eighth public involvement newsletter.

If you’d prefer to receive this as a text document, you can contact Kat or call her on 020 7104 8168.

A photograph from the HRA's strategy launch in June 2022.

Get involved in the work of the HRA

In this section you can find out about the different ways of working with us.

Join our community committee

Are you interested in helping shape how we make it easy to do research that people can trust? 

We are looking for three to four members of the public to join our community committee and attend meetings every three months. We can offer expenses and £75 involvement fees per meeting, to include your time preparing.

We want to involve you to help us to make better decisions and ensure that health and social care research is done with and for everyone. Our strategy, ‘Making it easy to do research that people can trust’, sets out our ambitions: 

• to make better decisions by working with a diverse group of people with a range of lived experiences
• to make sure that anyone who wants to get involved in research, can do so

In November 2022, we asked for your views on the best way to do this. Following the consultation, we are forming a new committee that will report to the Health Research Authority (HRA) board. The committee will be chaired by a non-executive director of the HRA and will increase the role of our volunteers and members of the public who work closely with us in our governance, ensuring that your insights, experiences, and views inform what we do.   

Further information about the role and how to apply are available on the HRA website.

The closing date for completing an expression of interest is midnight Monday 29 May 2023. 

Extended deadline to 10 May

Last month, we told you about our work in writing guidance on involving people in the design and delivery of clinical trials.

We are extending the deadline to send in your expression of interest. The new deadline is 10 May 2023.

There is more information online. If you have any questions, contact Damilola Odunlami on public.involvement@hra.nhs.uk.

Two people working together at a laptop

Do you have experience of being involved in long-term research?

We're looking for two people to join us to help plan and attend an event in autumn that will focus on the issue of consent during long-term research.

The event will focus on finding out what is important to people involved in long-term research and how we can earn and build their trust in how they will be treated if their ability to consent changes.

We are looking for people:

• who have a good understanding of what longitudinal research is and why it is important or you have experience of being a research participant in a longitudinal research study
• who have, or care for someone who has a health condition that impacts their ability to give informed consent

We can offer involvement fees of £50 per meeting to cover preparation, taking part in meetings and feeding back between meetings.

You can find out more about the role and how to apply on the HRA website.

If you are interested in being part of this group, please let us know by 12pm on Wednesday 31 May 2023.

HRA news

In this section, we share news about things we are working on that we think you might be interested in. If you’d like to read more about what we’re currently up to, head to the news and updates section of the HRA website.

New public involvement checklist

We’ve launched a new public involvement checklist to support researchers submitting studies for research ethics review.

The checklist has guidance and information on what Research Ethics Committees (RECs) will be looking for when considering public involvement as part of the ethics review.

Researchers can also use the checklist to review what they write in their applications as well as prepare for their REC meeting.

Group of people meeting together to plan an activity

Learning from the information we collect

When researchers apply for permissions and approvals for health, social and community care research in the UK, they enter information in an online application form called the Integrated Research Application System (IRAS).

We used this information to understand the current levels of public involvement in clinical trials. We analysed 479 applications to conduct clinical trials of medicines and medical devices which were made to HRA over a six-month period. We found that less than half (46%) of those applications involved the public. 

You can find out more about our analysis of public involvement in clinical trials on our website.:

If you have any questions, you can contact Barbara Molony-Oates on public.involvement@hra.nhs.uk.

Public involvement news from outside the HRA

In this section, we share news of activities organised by other groups or organisations. If you have questions, please get in touch directly with the organisers. 

Carers and involvement in research – top tips

Are you a carer, or do you know a carer who might be interested in becoming involved in research? Or perhaps you are part of a research team that would value guidance on involving carers in your work? Either way, the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) have worked with members of the public to produce some top tips:

• top tips for carers who are considering becoming involved
• top tips for researchers involving carers in their work

Feel free to share these graphics. If you have any questions or comments, you can contact the team at NIHR on publicpartnerships@nihr.ac.uk or 020 8843 7117.

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