Involvement

At the Health Innovation Network, we are passionate about embedding a culture where involvement (sometimes called Patient and Public Involvement or PPI) is at the heart of all we do. This includes helping people realise the benefits of involvement, maintaining momentum on understanding its importance and communicating the diversity of ways that people can proactively be involved in improving health and care.

Along with other regional health innovation networks, we aim to design and spread innovation that transforms healthcare in partnership with patients, the public, carers, and communities. Patient and public involvement has always been high on our agenda and we plan to bring diverse perspectives together from across the system to help bring involvement into its “second age”.

As an organisation, we hope to shift attitudes towards patient involvement, changing perceptions from being process-driven to outcome-led. We believe involvement offers clear benefits to both innovators and health and care services in terms of operational success. With the implementation of effective involvement tactics, we can help to unlock significant system efficiencies and better health outcomes for all.

At the Health Innovation Network South London, we are committing to this by co-developing our own Involvement Strategy with stakeholders from across the health and care landscape. This strategy supports our organisational strategic objectives through a series of actions to build upon our involvement activities and expertise as an organisation, but also as an influence on the wider NHS and social care system.

One of the ways we hope to support system change is through the development of a community that supports people working in involvement to tackle challenges and share successes together, at all levels of seniority. We will bring people together to develop, improve and implement involvement across south London, and – with the help of the wider AHSN Network – across England.

One of the ways we are supporting this locally is through the recruitment of Lived Experience Partners – individuals who work with us to further develop our approach to involvement through advising on involvement activities within our projects, expanding our community networks and supporting other experts by experience and service users who work with us. Their role is fundamental in supporting us to embed involvement within our organisation. You can hear from them first hand about their role via this HSJ article.