Our Policy – Involvement and Engagement

What we do

The NIHR Leeds MIC has a dedicated Patient and Public Involvement Team

When it comes to patient and public involvement, we take a one team approach, introducing patients to our healthcare professionals, academics, and industry experts to identify and validate unmet in vitro diagnostic needs.

We put patient involvement at the heart of our research programmes, as public input is crucial to the development of our proposals. This ensures research benefits are clear from the outset and that our projects address an unmet clinical, patient-led need.

Join our Patient and Public Involvement Team

We are always looking for patients to get involved in the work we do to identify, develop, and implement new in vitro diagnostic (IVD) tests. You can get involved in what we do in a number of important and rewarding ways, including: 

  • Reviewing information on websites, and in leaflets and participation information sheets and helping us with the wording and design of patient literature so it is appropriate and useful for the target audience
  • Commenting on ethical issues and suggesting how they can be addressed
  • Feeding back on study design to inform whether it is practical and acceptable from a participant perspective
  • Supporting research dissemination to help develop the best way of sharing findings in a meaningful way that relevant audiences and the wider public can understand
  • Assessing questionnaire design to consider how it can gain reliable, honest data from participants, particularly when questions are about sensitive topics
  • Proving insights based on direct experience via our project Steering Committees

Meetings are held throughout the year via teleconference or face-to-face in Leeds, and typically last one to two hours. Pre-meeting material may take up to one additional hour to read. You may occasionally be invited to attend meetings elsewhere in the UK, and you may be contacted by email or over the phone. The dates and times of meetings will be discussed and agreed with you before you decide to participate.

There are many ways you can benefit from joining our PPI group. For example, you can find out more about different diseases and new treatment strategies and become more aware of problems faced by the medical community. You will also help provide researchers with insights into what it is like to live with a particular disease, illness or health condition, ensuring research and practice is relevant to the needs of patients, carers, and service users. 

We do not pay PPI members, but we compensate them for their time where possible and will cover transport costs or online expenses for any meetings  you attend.

If you would like to get involved, please contact us.

For a list of our current involvement opportunities, please have a look at our PPI Opportunities page.