The CLAHRC East Midlands Patient and Public Partners’ Council and Centre for Black and Minority Ethnic Health initiatives, are supporting proportional, representative and diverse public involvement throughout the organisation, health research and regional structures

2014 Conference

Abstract: The Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRC) East Midlands has established an East Midlands Centre for Black and Minority Ethnic Health and a Patient and Public Partners’ Council. These initiatives complement each other by increasing awareness of research and facilitating wider participation and involvement. We will outline the principles and values we hold showing our progress to date, barriers encountered, facilitators adopted and future plans.

The Centre works with communities to help reduce health inequalities, facilitate the dissemination of health information, provide the tools for the communities to raise their own priorities and empower themselves to improve health literacy and access to interventions. We will show how the centre is building trust between minority communities and the research world, the roles of community members within the review panel and governance structure of the centre and the diversity of engagement we have achieved.

One of the members of the Partners’ Council will share their perspective and describe how the council works. The council has a fundamental role in observing and supporting funded projects acting both as a resource for research teams and as a monitoring body ensuring that the projects are involving all appropriate stakeholders throughout the process to potentially improve patient outcomes.

Increasing involvement to individuals who are not usually heard is fundamental to ensuring that interventions, programmes and services work inclusively. Therefore these initiatives are supporting partnership development with marginalised groups and individuals as the foundations to reduce health inequalities and ultimately achieve equity.