Voluntary Sector

• Salford Voluntary Services
• Diversity Matters North West
• Awakening Minds-Rochdale
• Hillel House Charity Manchester
• Army of kindness (Homelessness charity)
• Bridging communities
• Breast Friends Blythe House

Community Groups

• Multiple Walking football groups
• Manchester Breast Cancer Groups
• Rep for Macmillan Greater Manchester Cancer, which runs Breast Cancer Small Community Group
• Living with debilitating, long term conditions
• Living with the pain
• Being an inpatient in hospital
• Mental health and inpatient care.
• Mental health and PTSD
• Dementia
• Self-harm and suicidal ideation
• Addiction
• Being a carer – mental health
• Being a carer – long term complex conditions
• Cancer
• Living with long term medicine regimes
• Recovery -from serious health condition
• Recovery from addiction
• Challenges faced by people living in rural communities
• Living with sensory impairments and disabilities
• Established charity and community groups

BAME Communities

Relationships and trust with seldom heard BAME communities:

• British Indian
• Syrian
• Jewish
• Nigerian
• Afro-Caribbean Community
• Arab Community
• Kashmir Youth Project
• Soul Sisters Bengali Community
• Faith Based Communities
• Punjabi
• Supporting refugees and asylum seekers that are traumatised

Other contacts & networks

Engaging with primary and secondary care healthcare professionals, GPs, Pharmacists and community mental health teams:

• GP Patient Group – Hyde
• Patient & Public Group (PPG) member, at The Vallance Centre, Manchester
• Psoriasis Association
• Diabetes UK
• GGM Cancer: NHS England Patient Voices Group
• Global Psoriasis Atlas
• Human Library
• James Lind Alliance Psoriatic Arthritis Priority Setting Partnership
• Stalybridge and Hyde Labour Party Women’s Forum
• Tameside and Glossop Partnership Engagement Network (PEN)
• Manchester Health & Care Commissioning Patient & Public Advisory Committee
• Panel represented at the National AHSN network for Public and Patient Involvement and Engagement Leads
• Salford Sports Centres
• Manchester FA
• Background in nursing including mental health and community nursing

Social media:

• Manchester City social media sites MCFC-blue moon, MCFC-COK, BAD (2,000+ followers on Twitter

Research for the Future

People who get involved in research tend to have better health outcomes, as they become better at managing their own condition. Joining the research community means you’re actively helping to discover new ways to prevent, diagnose and manage illnesses.

Research for the Future is an NHS-supported initiative that helps people find out about and take part in health and care research in and around Greater Manchesteri. Everyone aged over 18 years is welcome to register.

The service helps researchers find suitable volunteers for a range of research opportunities. Over the last year it has played a central role in supporting recruitment to a range of coronavirus treatment and vaccine studies in Greater Manchester.

Registering with the service means you will receive information about research taking place in your area, along with details of how to take part. There are many different ways to get involved including helping to design a study, being part of a discussion group, completing a survey, helping to test new equipment or participating in a clinical trial. To find out more, visit www.researchforthefuture.org or text RESEARCH and YOUR NAME to 81400 and an advisor will call you back.

NHS & academic connections

Extensive experience of engaging with primary and secondary care healthcare professionals, GPs, Pharmacists and community mental health teams:

• Manchester Academy of Health Care Scientist Education (Lay Representative for Blood Science course)
• User Representative for Division of Nursing at University of Salford
• Patient Educator / Medical Education Partner at Manchester Medical School
• University of Cardiff
• Manchester Mental Health Trust
• Royal College of General Practitioners
• Digital Health Network
• Northern Care Alliance NHS Trust
• North West Ambulance Service
• Sitting on NICE, NHS England, Health Education England and Department of Health Committees

Lucy Williams: Gaining public insights to inform digital primary care improvements

During the COVID-19 pandemic, GP practices and primary care rapidly rolled out digital solutions and tech innovations to enable patients to continue to access care and to support online access.

GP practices adopted online triage, virtual appointments, including over video or telephone, online consultations, and the ability to make requests for sick notes or repeat prescriptions online.

As the effects of COVID-19 continue to be felt, primary care faces significant and increasing demands from patients, care providers and the health and care system. It is hoped that by optimising the use of these digital tools while continuing to provide face-to-face appointments, GPs in Greater Manchester can improve the experience and access for patients as well as improve workflows and match capacity with demand.

Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership and Health Innovation Manchester are coordinating a Greater Manchester-wide programme to continue to support primary care through digital. The project is working to understand the use of digital in primary care currently, including best practice and challenges faced, both by health and care staff and by patients accessing care. This will then be used to inform a blueprint for using digital tools effectively and delivering changes and improvements at practices across GM.

As part of a patient engagement workstream within the project, we have worked with members of the public within Greater Manchester to understand their experience of using digital tools to access primary care during the pandemic. This has been done through a series of panel discussion groups and user testing of the digital primary care tools.

Lucy Williams, Communications Manager at Health Innovation Manchester, said: “Gaining the insights from patients across Greater Manchester about their experiences of accessing their GP practice has been vital to the Digital Primary Care project.

“By gathering together diverse panels with a variety of different lived experiences, needs and perspectives, we now have rich feedback about how patients are using the digital tools currently and what challenges or concerns they have.

“We heard fantastic stories from some who have changed their opinions about accessing care through online tools and video consultations as well as some experiences where things hadn’t gone as well or where improvements could have been made. It was also important to discover what members of the public expect and want to see from their GP practice in regards to digital access.

“The panel sessions and usability testing has helped to inform the next stages of the digital primary care programme, ensuring that the blueprint to improve digital primary care reflects the patient experience. I’m looking forward to engaging with the public and patient panels again in the future as we continue this programme of work.”

Find out more about the Digital First Primary Care programme

Amber Yasin: the PCIE Panel & the Momentum Fund

The Momentum Fund has been established to support the adoption and spread of needs-led, evidence-based innovations in the health and care system. The focus of this year’s funding call was ‘the remote management of post-acute COVID-19 and/or chronically ill patients at home’.

Since its launch in 2016, the Momentum Fund has provided grants to 28 projects totalling over £1.5 million but due to the success of the programme, it has also enabled us to attract an additional £11 million to invest in further work.

Innovations can include new medical devices, digital solutions or new ways of working that are much better for patients and heath care professionals alike.

During the decision-making process, members of the Health Innovation Manchester Public and Community Involvement and Engagement (PCIE) Panel were consulted in order to give members of the public in Greater Manchester a say in selecting this call’s winning innovations.

Applications are reviewed by NHS leads and clinical experts working in the relevant field but by including members of the PCIE panel, we can also ensure that applications are considered from a patient perspective.

The public therefore have an important role to play and panel members have provided valuable feedback on innovations which has contributed to the shortlisting process. Panel members have also been included as panellists on final decision-making interviews with innovators.

Amber Yasin, Project Manager at Health Innovation Manchester said:

“In partnership with the Health Innovation Manchester PCIE Team, I have been leading the public and community involvement and engagement activity for the Momentum Fund for the past few years.

“The involvement of the panel is critical to the Momentum Fund process. This includes many big and amazing personalities, but they all made me feel really welcome.

“Working with the panel on these funding calls has been an absolute joy. By sharing their honest and unrestricted thoughts and opinions around innovations, it really helped us to ensure that the needs of the public and communities of GM is at the forefront of decision making and the innovations we take forward.

“We hope to continue the engagement between the PCIE panel and the industry team and ensure that patients are represented in innovative solutions being developed and deployed.”

Russ Cowper: the Momentum Fund

During the decision-making process of this year’s Momentum Fund, members of the Health Innovation Manchester Public and Community Involvement and Engagement (PCIE) Panel were consulted in order to give members of the public in Greater Manchester a say in selecting this call’s winning innovations.

The Momentum Fund has been established to support the adoption and spread of needs-led, evidence-based innovations in the health and care system. The focus of this year’s funding call was ‘the remote management of post-acute COVID-19 and/or chronically ill patients at home’.

Russ Cowper, a member of the Health Innovation Manchester PCIE Panel said:

“It was Zoom meeting time and I was ready. I knew the all fellow members of the panel involved and as we the relationships between us have developed as we continue to work together, I am really comfortable with them all now and quite ready and able to express my views.

“We followed a scoring mechanism and discussed each proposal and judged them on their merits using our own personal backgrounds and history as reference points. The quality and depth of experience of the panel never ceases to amaze me. We rigorously debated each application with each of us valuing each other’s points of view and contributions. 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 this was reflected in the overall scores but my thoughtful points were given due consideration and evaluated without bias or preconception.

“It was a pleasure to be involved, I will definitely do it again if asked.”

Nicky Timmis and Liz Brookes - Living Well beyond a Dementia Diagnosis

Nicky Timmis, Health Innovation Manchester’s Public and Patient Involvement and Engagement Manager, was joined by carer Liz Brookes, to speak about the importance of public engagement within dementia care.

The webinar, “Designing support and social participation to foster wellbeing during the dementia journey”, was part of Dementia Action Week (17-23 May). It was organised as part of the IDoService by Dr Isabelle Tournier, Marie Skłodowska-Curie European Research Fellow, and Professor Kristina Niedderer, Professor of Design at Manchester School of Art, Manchester Metropolitan University.

Previous University-led research, for instance the MinD project, ‘Designing for people with dementia’ led by Prof. Kristina Niedderer, highlighted that people with early to mid-stage dementia are looking for more opportunities to realise themselves and share daily activities with others. The challenge now is to support those living with dementia to return to ‘normal’ and to get involved in vital leisure activities again as various COVID restrictions begin to ease.

During the webinar Nicky explained about the role of HInM and why public and community involvement and engagement is vital to our work as part of a section titled “Innovation? Rocket Science? Living well beyond the diagnosis.”

She said: “Reaching out to engage with the people and communities of Greater Manchester is crucial to our work, ensuring that our partnerships are meaningful and ensure the lived experience is included.”

Liz then explained her personal experience of caring for her husband Mike, who was diagnosed with vascular dementia ten years ago.

Watch Nicky and Liz in the webinar on the MMU video channel (starts at 30.07)

https://mmutube.mmu.ac.uk/media/t/1_26h8i1q2