Planning patient and public involvement in HTA

researcher looking at notes The HTA programme recognises the increasing active involvement of patients, service users or the wider public in research and would like to offer guidance to research teams about patient and public involvement in health technology assessment (HTA). The HTA programme encourages applicants to consider whether the scientific quality, feasibility, or practicality of the proposal can be improved by patient and public involvement. Research teams wishing to involve such people should outline their plans in applications stating: the aims of patient and public involvement in their project; a description of the people already involved and to be involved in future; and a description of the methods of involvement. If appropriate a budget for patient and public involvement should be included in section G6.1 of the electronic application form. It is expected that patient and public involvement will improve the quality of the application although, they will not, for that reason alone, be favoured over proposals without patient and public involvement. Find out more about funding and applications.

The following sections illustrate patient and public involvement in guiding research with examples chosen from controlled trials and systematic reviews. They particularly emphasise how patient and public involvement can make a difference. They supplement publications by INVOLVE, available free at www.invo.org.uk, that provide more detail for research teams and for members of the public about patient and public involvement in preparing a research proposal or conducting research.

Your views are important to us. Please let us know about your experiences using the guidance by emailing htapublic@southampton.ac.uk