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HDRC Workshop

June 2025

Lauren Batty and Shahid Islam

The Centre for Co-production and Peer Research (CoPPeR)

Bradford Institute for Health Research

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A short history of …UK policy on public involvement

  • Origins in the UK go back as far as the Griffiths Report 1983.

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  • Public participation was enshrined into UK law by the NHS Community Care Act 1990

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  • Section 242 NHS Act (2006) highlighted the ‘Duty to Involve’ – NHS commissioners and Providers must involve the public when making important decisions

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  • Francis Inquiry (2013) After the Mid-Staffordshire Review found that one of the big failings was the lack of PPI in identifying poor care (systematically ignored)

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  • The Care Act 2014 specifically includes the concept of co-production in its statutory guidance

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Co-production means delivering public

services in an equal and reciprocal relationship

between professionals, people using services,

their families and their neighbours. Where

activities are co-produced in this way, both

services and neighbourhoods become far

more effective agents of change.

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Nesta, The challenge of co-production (2009)

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          • Strategy
  • Peer reviewed paper

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Values and principles

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Co-production Principles

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��Centre for Co-production & Peer Research �(CoPPeR) ��

Holmewood , Bradford

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Community Co-ordinator

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Peer researcher

Participants

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Peer researcher

Participants

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Peer researcher

Participants

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Peer researcher

Participants

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Peer researcher

Participants

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A brief summary of what we did…

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  • “At the moment nothing, there's nothing for teens or young adults, crime rate and police presence is at an all time high and I rarely leave my house due to this”.
  • “Everything at the moment, lack of bin use, major fly tipping issues, houses in disrepair some unable to live in, buildings are burnt down nothing is available and hasn't been for a while”�

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Holmewood

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A big learning curve

  • Recruiting and retaining peer researchers
  • Building confidence and capacity
  • Doing co-production is messy

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Any questions?

  • lauren.batty@outloudltd.co.uk
  • shahid.islam@bthft.nhs.uk

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Community Research:

Incorporating community inclusive approaches into the HDRC

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Nadia Bashir & Alfred Sandy

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26th June 2025

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Why is Community Research important?

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  • It values and centres the lived experience and insider knowledge that people closest to specific issues bring to research – helping us to hear other peoples' views.
  • Offers the potential to involve diverse communities with valuable skills e.g., multilingual skills.
  • Allows us to hear the voices of those seldom heard.
  • Build the capacity of individuals and organisations to do research themselves...leaving a legacy.
  • Community Researchers help us to become aware of our blind spots and �assumptions.
  • It has a transformational impact for some of the people engaged as CRs.

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Core components of the community researcher training

Session

Content

Session 1

Introduction to the Community Researcher role; what is qualitative research and evaluation; key skills for interviewing; effective listening skills exercise.

Session 2

Refresher exercise on qualitative research skills; an introduction to Research ethics; Community Researcher safety and wellbeing.

Session 3

Co-production of research tools, including designing the Participant Information sheet and Topic Guide; piloting the research tools.

Session 4

Introducing the research; the research fieldwork pack; beginning to use the topic guide.

Session 5

Practice session, involving role play (researcher-participant-observer)

Session 6

Debrief with Community Researchers; an introduction to data analysis.

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Key lessons - community inclusive approaches

  • Academics should embed themselves in the communities they intend to involve in the research!
  • Work closely with community organisations as they broker relationships with communities. Their contribution should be budgeted for!
  • Create opportunities for all Community Researchers to be involved in some meaningful way.
  • Allow Community Researchers to be involved as little or as much as they want to be.
  • Ensure research readiness.
  • Adapt training materials, structure, learning exercises according to the needs of Community Researchers.
  • Widen opportunities for Community Researchers: sharing experiences with other �projects/ programmes; involvement in Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) activities; attending seminars and conferences (broadening horizons); pursuing funding to do research independently.

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