MLTC-M Community of Practice in ECR training on best practice patient and public involvement with diverse populations

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Recruiting and supporting patients and the public to get involved in health research can be challenging for junior researchers, especially when the people they want to speak to have two or more long term health conditions. We want to set up a 'Community of Practice' to help junior researchers, patients and members of the public learn from one another about health research and all the different ways people can get involved. Our community will include researchers, patient representatives and public involvement organisers from several research projects studying people affected by two or more long term health conditions. We will meet, both face to face and online, to share our experiences and the various approaches we have taken to reaching and involving people from as many different backgrounds as possible. This will include everything from setting up a research project to sharing the results at the end. We will also train junior researchers in how to assess how well an approach is working, in different settings and health conditions, and help them set up a support network.We will share the lessons we have learned with other researchers and patient groups. We hope that this will result in patient and public involvement in research into long term conditions that is respectful and represents a wide cross section of the UK population. This in turn will lead to findings that reflect the concerns of patients and the public, and health care and treatments that fit with the reality of people's lives.