Engaging and involving public contributors and the Greater Manchester community is essential to improving health care and the general public remains a key enabler in the delivery of HInM’s work around innovation and research.

In collaboration with NIHR Applied Research Collaboration Greater Manchester (ARC-GM), HInM has been working with a range of public contributors as part of our Public and Community Involvement and Engagement (PCIE) work to ensure that the voices and lived experience of local people are at the heart of research and innovation. This partnership is crucial in helping us to ensure that the projects and programmes taken forward will address the health needs of our population and the diverse communities of Greater Manchester.

There are several ways that HInM works in partnership with the public to achieve this:

• Engaging with local people and diverse communities, including inviting the public to attend events or recruiting local people that are willing to share their experiences around a health-related issue or topic.
• Involving members of the public with relevant lived experience, skills or knowledge in our work in a partnership approach in projects or research. This partnership creates opportunities to help shape the direction of projects and influence decision making.
• Participation in research, such as recruiting members of the public with relevant lived experience to be interviewed by researchers and alongside other participants, providing feedback and insights.

During 2020-2021 HInM has utilised technology to enable public involvement and engagement to continue in a COVID-19 secure way, including virtual meetings and events as well as opportunities to provide feedback digitally. Whilst this has created some challenges, HInM have been proactive and utilised existing assets to continue to engage with seldom heard and marginalised groups. This has included utilising relationships, links and connections of PCIE Panel and Forum members to reach out, engage and involve more communities and people with more lived experience.

HInM’s Public and Community Involvement and Engagement Panel has continued to play a vital role, with the 15 local members bringing a range of skills, knowledge and lived experience to represent the diverse communities of GM and act as a critical friend to improve projects and programmes. The panel also act community champions and have connections to other groups and valuable networks to ensure wider involvement and engagement. Find out more about the panel.

HInM has also continued to be part of the Greater Manchester Public Community Involvement & Engagement (PCIE) Forum (formerly the One Manchester Forum), bringing together PCIE leads from our partner organisations, including NHS Trusts, Universities, research bodies, Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership, the voluntary sector and other existing public experience groups, to share learning, maximise collaboration and form new cross-sector opportunities. Find out more

A key part of the GM PCIE Forum’s work has been to discuss the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on minority groups, existing inequalities and communities. The forum has also discussed experiences of health and healthcare during COVID-19 as well as digital literacy and exclusion. This work resulted in the creation of the “Learning from Greater Manchester’s People and Communities during the COVID-19 pandemic report” which identified key themes and learnings from the pandemic. Read the report

PCIE Impacts:

• Engaged with more than 524 public contributors
• Digital primary care online survey received 449 responses
• Held 11 discussion groups on a range of topics including COVID-19, digital primary care and mental health
• 6 public members contributed to the shortlisting of the Momentum Fund applications 12 PCIE panel meetings

What public contributors say about working with HInM

Mr Mistry, a family carer in Greater Manchester and member of the HInM PCIE Panel was part of the judging process for Momentum Fund. He said: “It was a unique and invaluable opportunity to be involved in the decision making process for the awarding of seed, pump priming funding for potential innovative health solutions for Greater Manchester, whilst bringing a patient/carer/public perspective to the discussion.”

Russ Cowper, another member of the HInM PCIE Panel also commented: “One of the proposals fell right under my personal experience and I was allowed time and courtesy to explain my thoughts although it was very much a team effort and it was reflected in the scores, as thoughtful points were given due consideration and evaluated without bias or preconception.”

Find out more about PCIE work

Developed through a series of workshops with representatives from the system including GPs, practice managers, technical experts and members of the public, the digital primary care outcomes framework aims to support localities to make improvements to the quality of care and treatment they provide, enabled by digital technology.

This work was vitally informed by PCIE activity including focus groups and a survey to detail public attitudes to digital tools in primary care. In total more than 480 responses were received and helped to ensure the public voice in this work was heard. Overall, the report highlighted both positive experiences, negative experiences but more importantly areas for improvement within digital primary care.

Key themes from the feedback include, access to GP services with social distancing and virtually, how to access services and receiving personalised care, and empowerment and self-management.

Find out more about the insight report and the digital primary care outcomes framework

Use the image links below to move between the different sections of the report.