Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement Officer

Purpose of the Post

Working within the Legal, Trust and Ethics team, the Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement Officer is a pivotal role in supporting [Employer hidden — sign up to reveal]’s mission and our strategy to build trust and confidence in health data research among patients, public, practitioners and key stakeholders. The best way to do this is to embed meaningful involvement where patients and the public are actively involved in shaping our work and decision-making – putting the patient and public voice at the heart of what we do.

Main Responsibilities

• Support the delivery of [Employer hidden — sign up to reveal]’s strategy for engaging and involving patients, public and frontline healthcare practitioners.
• With support from senior colleagues, work with teams and our patient and public contributors to advise, identify and propose approaches to patient and public involvement that will enable projects to work with patients and the public as partners.
• Undertake specific involvement activities for both one-off and long-term opportunities, including but not limited to focus groups, national public dialogues, developing and undertaking surveys etc.
• Provide support to the Public Advisory Board, ensuring the Chair, Deputy Chair and members are fully involved in between meetings, organising meetings, and act as the link between the members and the wider [Employer hidden — sign up to reveal] team.
• Co-ordinate feedback and input from the Public Advisory Board, and other public contributors, on [Employer hidden — sign up to reveal]’s projects and programmes.
• Working alongside the Public Involvement and Engagement Manager, drive and promote innovative ways of involving and hearing from patients, carers and the public, challenging traditional methods, particularly ensuring growing involvement from currently underrepresented and underserved groups and communities in health data science.
• Working with the Public Involvement and Engagement Manager, support the development and implementation of a training programme for researchers, innovators and public and patient involvement leads on embedding meaningful involvement.
• Support the Public Involvement and Engagement Manager to develop and implement an approach to involving frontline healthcare practitioners.
• Working with the Public Involvement and Engagement Manager to ensure work is co-ordinated across the national science priorities, [Employer hidden — sign up to reveal] and [Employer hidden — sign up to reveal] and work with senior colleagues to identify potential areas of collaboration.
• Working with the Public Involvement and Engagement Manager to establish effective working relationships with teams across [Employer hidden — sign up to reveal] and strategic partners to maximise opportunities for collaboration.
• Monitor progress towards implementation of [Employer hidden — sign up to reveal]’s Guiding Principles for involvement and Engagement and the UK Standards for Public Involvement.
• Working with the Public Involvement and Engagement Manager, support [Employer hidden — sign up to reveal] to raise and sustain the external profile of our patient and public involvement impact and share learnings through a range of platforms such as events, publication in journals, newsletters, and other channels.
• Support the development of a positive culture, standards and values for patient/public partnerships across [Employer hidden — sign up to reveal].
• Act as an internal and external ambassador for public, patient and practitioner engagement and involvement.
• Provide administrative support to the wider Legal, Trust and Ethics Team. This will include but not be limited to maintaining patient and public contact lists in the client relations management system, administering meetings and diary and event management.

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

Experience

• Experience of working with patients, carers and members of the public with diverse interests.
• Experience / understanding of different patient and public involvement techniques and approaches.
• Experience of planning, running and evaluating patient/public involvement activities.
• Experience of organising and managing successful workshops and events.
• Experience of facilitating meetings and delivering presentations.
• Proven track record of effectively supporting patient and public involvement groups/panels.
• Experience in collaborating across teams and/or organisations to help create and co-deliver shared goals.
• A record of success in embedding patient/public involvement in health services or research.
• Experience of working in a complex organisation.
• Desirable – Experience of working with under-represented and underserved communities in research.

Skills

• An understanding/willingness to learn how to embed the UK Standards for Public Involvement within organisations.
• Excellent people and interpersonal skills, with expertise in working with diverse groups of people.
• Ability to develop effective and meaningful working relationships with public contributors and other stakeholders.
• Ability to facilitate and engage effectively with teams and public contributors.
• Ability to use discretion and judgement in dealing with confidential and sensitive issues.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to liaise effectively and explain concepts without technical jargon.
• Excellent attention to detail with the ability to produce high quality materials.
• Proven track record of working under pressure and able to make decisions in a timely manner as required with a flexible and adaptable approach.
• Excellent planning, organisation and time-management skills in a fast-paced environment.
• Ability to prioritise a wide range of demands and requirements, and manage own workload with multiple projects.
• Solutions and delivery focused with an innovative approach and strong experience of taking initiative.
• Excellent IT skills with a willingness to learn how to update our involvement and engagement network databases and webpages.

Knowledge

• An understanding of public engagement and involvement in an academic/research/healthcare environment and an interest in and awareness of the science, data, technology, and medicine sector.
• Desirable – Knowledge of the public sensitivities of using data for research.
• Desirable – Awareness of sensitivity to health data access.

Education

Educated to degree level or comparable equivalent.

Dimensions

This is a full-time role. To enable us to embed meaningful involvement and engagement across our work, there may be circumstances where meetings, workshops or events with our public contributors are run outside of core working hours. This is to ensure we can work with a wider range of patients and the public e.g., those who currently work in the day. If this is the case, you will be offered TOIL (as agreed in advance with the Patient and Public Engagement and Involvement Manager).

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