Establishing a PPI panel to embed PPI in the learning, teaching, and research agenda of the School of Clinical Therapies.

21 Oct 2025

A PPI panel was established for the School of Clinical Therapies, to advise on embedding meaningful lived experience within teaching, learning, and research, ensuring that future healthcare education and research reflect the voices of patients and the public.

Project Summary

The PPI panel would:

• Provide guidance on how best to promote teaching and learning by embedding the meaningfulness of PPI partners’ lived experiences.
• Shape research co-design protocols as culturally sensitive, inclusive, and innovative.
• Co-facilitate future research projects relating to health and social care from stages of conception through to implementation.

To achieve the project aim, a full day event with a “World Café” invited attendees (including academic staff, practice education staff, experts by experience and identified PPI partners) to discern, through discussion, how best to embed PPI in research, and how best to augment existing models of teaching and learning through the lens of PPI.

A working group of PPI partners, clinicians, School of Clinical Therapies academics, practice educators, and students participated in a World Café event hosted in UCC. The World Café included representation from 13 local and national patient charities and support groups. A leading expert, Dr. Alice Moult provided a keynote address to explain PPI in the context of designing and delivering health and social care programmes. Questions posed at each ‘table’ were informed by six UK standards for public involvement: Inclusive Opportunities, Working Together, Support and Learning, Governance, Communication, Impact.

Themes relating to these six standards were discussed, revised, and summarised. Participants identified preferences according to best practice principles calling for the panel to offer accessibility, clarity in decision-making, flexibility, inclusiveness, training, and peer support.

Another important outcome was the establishment of a PPI panel, which calls for wide representation, clarity about the roles of individuals as PPI panel members, and promotes equality of access and participation.

The PPI panel also held its inaugural hybrid meeting. Cross-sector collaboration was evident through community partners expressing interest in strengthening their relationships with the School. PPI panel members deliberated on how best to enhance understanding of roles, expectations, and how decision-making could occur in ‘comfortable’ collaboration. The Chair facilitated a space for clinical and lived experience narratives to co-exist, informing each other and building understanding. This relationship-focused approach resulted in rich discussions.

Through structured discussion and reflection, participants identified best practice principles including accessibility, inclusiveness, flexibility, clarity in decision-making, training, and peer support. The project achieved all its objectives, including the successful establishment of a formal PPI panel, which now provides regular input into the School’s activities. The panel ensures lived experiences inform curriculum design, research priorities, and professional training, bridging the gap between education, clinical practice, and the communities they serve.