Public perspectives on assessing what works in health care

2004 Conference

We have gathered public perceptions on assessing ‘what works?’ in health by asking people what is most important to assess and how should this be done. We have done this with people working with the Cochrane Collaboration and the NHS Health Technology Assessment Programme.

Here we shall present perceptions from the public on testing ‘what works’, how we have developed systems and resources to help people comment at the stages of commissioning and publishing research, and how we are evaluating those systems and resources.

We shall describe:

• ideas that have come from members of the public that can be incorporated into health technology assessment;
• how these relate to ideas from health professionals and researchers;
• how members of the public are central to the development of resources to support public involvement;
• how members of the public have responded to systems and resources to support their involvement
• methods for describing what the public has to offer health technology assessment

We shall raise for discussion the need to balance sufficient guidance for public peer review of health technology assessment without constraining their contributions.