MPFT places service users, carers, and staff the centre of what we do and how we serve our communities. Patient and public involvement and engagement, representatives, and research champions are an important part of the Trust’s research programme.

We work closely with the Trust's Involvement Department and the NIHR/West Midlands Clinical Research Network ‘Be Part of Research’ service.

International Clinical Trials Day 17th May 2021

Every year we take time out to celebrate and thank all those people involved in clinical trials internationally. At Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust we are proud of our hardworking staff and participants for their contributions and involvement in research. This year we have put together a collection of articles to celebrate international clinical trials day, and those who participate!

Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) in Mental Health Research

Dr Tom Kingstone (Research Associate in Mental Health, MPFT) is a member of the PPIE Steering Group at our academic partner organisation, Keele University. Tom is a leading advocate for PPIE in research and actively involves members of the public from the initial stages of research development through to the sharing of research findings.

Recently, Tom co-led a co-production project with a broad range of health and social care stakeholders to develop a novel set of wellbeing resources for people with long-term pain (https://beefree.org.uk/). From day one, people with lived experience of pain and mental health problems were key partners in this project. They worked with the academic team to understand key issues and experience, identify appropriate solutions based on needs, and shape the content of resources to ensure fit-for-purpose and accessibility to the wider public. The success of the project relied on PPIE, which was supported through the PPIE Team at Keele and both Jenny Lench (Involvement Manager) and Jessica Tunmore (PPIE lead) at MPFT.

Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) in Social Care research

Dr Paul Campbell (Senior Research Associate, MPFT) has led a number of research projects that have involved PPIE. His current work at MPFT is supporting the development of research activity within social care and social work within the Social Care Research Engagement (SCREEN) project. This is a truly bottom-up approach and one of the core objectives of SCREEN is to ensure that service users and patients have a voice. This planned activity makes research relevant to patients and service users, provides insights based on experiences of patients and service users, gives insights into the best ways to conduct research, and importantly raises the profile of research with the public. To this end, Dr Campbell has engaged with MPFT’s PPIE lead (Jessica Tunmore) and MPFT Head of Service User and Carer Involvement (Fiona Moore) to plan out a strategy to ensure PPIE for social care projects in the future.