The Health Foundation

Description

The Health Foundation is an independent charity working to improve the quality of healthcare in the UK.

We want the UK to have a healthcare system of the highest possible quality – safe, effective, person-centred, timely, efficient and equitable. We believe that in order to achieve this, health services need to continually improve the way they work.

We are here to inspire and create the space for people to make lasting improvements to health services.

We conduct research and evaluation, put ideas into practice through a range of improvement programmes, support and develop leaders and share evidence to drive wider change.

Public involvement in research

Public involvement in improvement is a core part of our work, with one of our two priority areas focusing on person-centred care

We want a more person-centred healthcare system. One that supports people to make informed decisions about and successfully manage their own health and care, including choosing when to let others act on our behalf. We want healthcare services to deliver care responsive to people’s individual abilities, preferences, lifestyles and goals.

This requires a change in behaviour and mindset from patients and clinicians, supported by a system that puts patients at its heart. We are working with patients, professionals, and healthcare providers so that people have a better healthcare experience and better health. We are working on building recognition and understanding of what a person-centred NHS looks like and sharing evidence and practical tools to enable us to support wider change.

Public Involvement in research is an area that we recognise as important and are trying to improve.

We actively encourage public involvement in all of our research, and many of our commissions have included patient representatives in the commissioning process and advisory panels.

In addition, our Insight programme – a researcher-led open call for research ideas that is awarding £1.4 million in 2013 – has the following as a core aim:

·          to demonstrate the value of involvement of patients, policy makers, decision makers, and healthcare providers in improvement research.