Public Involvement in Privacy (PIP) panel – a year on – small challenges, big achievements and ongoing developments…

 

By Lorraine Wright, Lecturer in Psychology/PhD candidate/Research Assistant in Psychology, Edge Hill University

It’s a year since we wrote a blog about the PIP panel. An integral part of the AP4L project, the PIP panel is based on a public involvement model adopted as routine practice within health and social care and associated research (UK Standards for Public Involvement, National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), 2019). The PIP panel has been developed and adapted to meet the project's requirements while still keeping the public involvement model’s standards at the core of the panel. 

Comprised of members of the public who are ‘experts by experience, ’ the PIP panel has eight public partner members, two for each of the transitions involved in the study (serious illness, leaving the forces, relationship breakdown, and coming out as LGBT+). The group meets bi-monthly online for an hour.

Over the last 22 months, the PIP panel has met 11 times, averaging seven out of eight-panel members at each meeting, indicating a well-engaged group of research partners. The agenda for each meeting is decided by key project staff members who require feedback on their part of the project. Still, we also dedicate meetings to bringing the PIP panel up to speed with the project to ensure they can ask questions and see where their feedback has been incorporated into developments. A summary of the content of each meeting can be seen below:



We ensure the meetings are as interactive, informative, and engaging as possible. We have included live chat, group work, 1:1 discussions, presentations, and pre-recorded videos focusing on discussions between PIP panel members and the project staff.

Those eagle-eyed amongst you will notice no PIP panel meeting on July 24. This was because, as a project, it was decided that the PIP panel’s input would be most valuable when the tech responses had initial versions for feedback.  Therefore, the July meeting was postponed, the PIP panel received an email update about the project to continue meaningful engagement, and the panel was reconvened in September. A concern here was that we might lose momentum with the well-engaged panel. However, this was unfounded, and the panel reconvened in September.

At the September and November meetings, a tech response was available for presentation and comment, and the PIP panel could give live thoughts and feedback to the project members so they could go away and think about, amend, and develop the tech response as needed.

Over the coming months, we will convene a PIP panel in line with tech response developments. The aim is to have versions of the tech responses ready for the PIP panel to give their opinions on, and as we move towards the end of the project, our public partners will have meaningful and impactful input.

Watch this space—the PIP panel has helped shape the project and has lots to contribute!

 

 

 

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