Public and Patient Involvement in Regulation of Pharmacy and Healthcare

In our research we want to find the best ways to include patient and public perspectives and experiences into the decision-making by healthcare professional regulators (for example organisations that regulate pharmacists and doctors). By doing this we aim to support organisations to ensure they are more patient-centred and reflective of public needs and expectations. It may also help these organisations build public trust and confidence.

We know that trying to change practice is difficult, and it does not automatically happen after we make a set of guidelines. Therefore, once we have found the best ways for regulators to include patient and public perspectives, we would like to co-design a plan to put these guidelines into practice (an implementation plan) that regulators can use. If this project gets funded, we will want input from a wide range of people to design this plan, including patients and the public.

For now, we want to speak to 4-6 members of the public who have used community pharmacy services (for example people who have bought over-the-counter medicines, or get regular prescriptions) to help us review our research plan. Contributors must be 18 years and over living in ROI and accessing pharmacy services in ROI.

We will ask you to meet us online for a one-hour meeting on the 11th or 12th December. This meeting will give us a clearer idea of how we will carry out the research and it will improve our grant application.

At this stage we are just applying for funding so the project may or may not go ahead. If you are interested in staying involved for this two-year research project we will keep your details (with your consent) and contact you if the research is funded.