Patient and public involvement in research: the need for budgeting PPI staff costs in funding applications

Abstract

Plain English summary Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) is important for high-quality research. It makes research more relevant to patients, and makes the results more useful for the health service. To make patient involvement effective, we need skilled staff with experience of involving lay members in research, as well as engaging researchers in PPI activities. There is little guidance about staff time needed to recruit and support lay members and researchers properly. This means that we still do not understand the true cost of including patients and the public in research, and we often under cost this in funding applications. As an example, we reflect on how the Asthma UK Centre for Applied Research (AUKCAR) has organised staff to support for its patient involvement. We give some thoughts on how to cost PPI staff time in funding applications. By focusing attention on the team behind the lay volunteers, we hope to encourage a much-needed discussion about the support involved, and deliver more patient benefits. The AUKCAR experience can be adapted to other research topics and contexts.

Keywords

• Patient and public involvement
• Community engagement
• Research
• Health