Patients are involved at every stage of our work, from programme design through to the development of outputs – and much in between. Not only is patient engagement important to HQIP, to patients and to healthcare providers; it is crucial for healthcare services. By working closely with patients and communities, we can understand their priorities, to develop and deliver audits and programmes that lead to services that meet their needs.
If you’re listening to your patients, you’re going to get things right more often” Sadia, HQIP patient representative
HQIP Service User Network (SUN)
We ensure that patients and carers’ voices are reflected throughout our work. Central to this commitment is our Service User Network (SUN). This is an advisory group of patients, parents, carers and others, who have an active input into relevant HQIP work.
Engaging patients in programme commissioning and delivery
HQIP is committed to patient and carer engagement in our core business of commissioning and managing programmes:
Specification development
We identify individuals and topic specific charities to work with, to understand the views of patients and carers in the relevant area of care. We focus on understanding patient concerns, benefits and where they might like to see improvements to ensure their priorities are fed into the specification development process.
Procurement
Once the specification is finalised, we run a procurement process in which the topic is put out to tender. We ensure that specific questions related to engaging with patients, carers and the public are included in the tender process.
Programme delivery
All HQIP-commissioned programmes are expected to include patient engagement as a core part of their work, and we monitor this through our contract management. Our Service User Network helped us to co-produce a standard process for incorporating patient engagement into all our commissioned work. Example activities include:
• Focus groups
• Questionnaires
• One-to-one conversations
• Charity engagement.
Influencing national strategy
HQIP’s patient representatives have been involved in guiding national strategy, for some care areas. An important example of this is where some of our Service User Network (SUN) formed a specific Obesity User Panel, to provide input into national obesity care. The result of this activity was a strategy that supports tailored health interventions for specific communities and is more culturally sensitive. We are proud to be involved in work like this, and we are grateful to our patient partners, who dedicate their time and energy to share insights about their care and treatment, to achieve improvements like this. Find out more in this article from a patient’s perspective.
Involving patients in wider access to HQIP’s data
HQIP is a custodian of data from across many areas of healthcare. The quality and breadth of our national audits and registries mean that datasets are sought after for a wide range of research and other purposes. It is therefore important that we share this data, where relevant, but also ensure maximum scrutiny that doing so will deliver wider public benefit. Involving public members in our Data Access Request Group (DARG) provides an added layer of supportive challenge and ensures transparency.
HQIP’s Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) strategy
All of this activity is underpinned by a Patient and Public Involvement strategy, which was co-produced with patient representatives, and sets out our vision, commitment and approach to embedding lived experience at the heart of our work.
