JOB TITLE:Patient and Public Involvement Coordinator

JOB DESCRIPTION

General Information

GRADE:Band 6

DEPARTMENT:Biomedical Research Centre

HOURS:37.5

RESPONSIBLE TO:Populations Sciences Cluster Manager

ACCOUNTABLE TO:Population Sciences Cluster Lead

Guy’s & St Thomas NHS Foundation Trust

Guy’s and St Thomas’ (GSTFT) is one of the largest hospital trusts in the country, with a staff of almost 12,000, a turnover of over £1 billion and one million patient contacts a year.

The Trust comprises two of London’s oldest and best known teaching hospitals. The hospitals have a long history, dating back almost 900 years, and have been at the forefront of medical progress and innovation since they were founded. Both hospitals have built on these traditions and continue to have a reputation for excellence and innovation.

We are part of King’s Health Partners Academic Health Sciences Centre (AHSC), a pioneering collaboration between one of the world’s leading research-led universities and three of London’s most successful NHS Foundation Trusts. Our AHSC is one of only five in the UK. It consists of King’s College London, and Guy’s and St Thomas’, King’s CollegeHospital and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trusts. King’s Health Partners includes seven hospitals and over 150 community based services, is responsible for seeing 2 million patients each year, has 25,000 employees and 19,500 students, and a £2 billion annual turnover. Itbrings togetherthe best of basic and translational research, clinical excellence and world-class teaching to deliver groundbreaking advances in physical and mental healthcare. See

From 1 April 2011, the management of community health services in Lambeth and Southwark transferred from the local Primary Care Trusts to Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, marking a new era for community services locally.

The integration of community services into GSTFT provides an opportunity for staff to help shape services so they better suit patient needs, balance demands across the whole system and create a seamless care pathway for patients.

Research & Development Department Information

The R&D Department at Guy’s & St Thomas’NHS Foundation Trust is one of the focal points for innovative research in London through its nationally recognised research portfolio and research infrastructure. The broad ranging portfolio includes one of only five National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) comprehensive Biomedical Research Centres awarded in 2007-2012 in partnership with our academic partner King’s College London, and one of only 11 NIHR Biomedical Research Centres receiving funding from 2012-2017. The portfolio also includes numerousNIHR Programme Grants for Applied Health, Research for Patient Benefit Project Grants, a wide range of externally funded Research Grants as well as a research scheme for NHS consultants. In addition, the Trust is a stakeholder in the newlyaccredited Academic Health Sciences Centre, King’s Health Partners and the Joint Clinical Trials Office. The R&D Department also supports the recently established Clinical Research Facilities both at St Thomas’ Hospital and Guy’s Hospital based within the recently opened Experimental Medicine Hub. As well as hosting the South London Comprehensive Local Research Network (CLRN) the Trust is a major player in the South London network both in relation to the NIHR research study portfolio and accruals into studies; the R&D Department also hosts the Primary Care Research Network for Greater London (PCRN-GL) - the South East London Cancer Research Network (SELCRN) is also hosted by the Trust.

Based in refurbished offices within the Tower Wing at Guy’s Hospital, this dynamic, lively and diverse department has the breadth of knowledge and skills to ensure that this high level of research activity and associated research processes are managed smoothly, efficiently and collaboratively.

The NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at GSTFT and KCL

The NIHR Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) at GSTFT and KCL has recently been awarded a further £58.7M over the period 2012-2017 as part of the Department of Health’s strategy for Research & Development to deliver world class translational research to benefit the health and wealth of the nation. The first GSTFT/KCL BRC award from April 2007-2012 allowed us to establish of state of the art research infrastructure including the development of an Experimental Medicine Hub at Guy’s Hospital. The new BRC’s research is strategically integrated and managed by five Research Clusters: Experimental Medicine and Therapeutics; Biomarkers, Co-diagnostics and Imaging; Population Sciences; the School of Translational and Experimental Medicine (STEM) and the Operational Infrastructure Cluster. Research within these Clusters are based around eight outstanding research themes encompassing Cancer; Cardiovascular Disease; Cutaneous Medicine; Environmental and Respiratory Health; Imaging & Bio-Engineering; Infection & Immunity; Translational Genetics; and Transplantation.

The Experimental Medicine Hub houses state of the art facilities for the delivery of translational research and includes the BRC/R&D Department Management offices, CLRN, PCRN, Joint Clinical Trials Offices creating a one stop shop for researchers, as well as the CRF at Guy’s, Immune Monitoring Core, Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) Cell Therapy Suite and Genomics Core, as well as Quintiles Phase I Clinical Trials Unit, GMP Pharmacy, the Assisted Conception Unit with a GMP stem cell suite a GMP Flow Sorting Core and BRC Imaging Core.

Organisational Values:

The post holder will:

Put patients first - consider the patient’s needs and wishes in all that they do
Take pride in what they do – strive for highest standards on own work and challenge colleagues to do the same
Strive to be the best – in terms of patient care & teamwork

Act with integrity - maintain the privacy & dignity of patients, work with integrity and be trustworthy, be accountable for own work
Respect others – patients, visitors and colleagues. Actively give and receive feedback.

Job Summary

Driving organisational change to ensure all patients are offered the opportunity to participate in research is central to the BRC’s strategy, which will require staff and local people to work together to develop methods of involvement and participation that are appropriate and relevant to patient needs, thus raising the general publics awareness of our research activities and informing them about opportunities relevant to them.

Over the last three years the BRC has embedded patient and public involvement in research as a core practice in its research activities. It has also made great strides to develop public engagement activities such as educational events for local school students and public discussion forums for people to talk to researchers about current areas of interest.

The Patient and Public Involvement Coordinator will be responsible for maintaining and facilitating the core BRC Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) and Public Engagement in Science (PES) activities, developing new opportunities for involvement and engagement of the public in the BRC’s work, and for supporting the PPI and PES activity within the Population Sciences Cluster.

The Post holder will;

Act as a source of expertise and advice for all clinical and non-clinical researchers and associated research staff with respect both to patient and public involvement and public engagement in science activities

Act as a source of support and information to members of the public wanting to get involved with the BRC’s research activities

Be responsible for building and maintaining strong relationships with and between researchers, patient support groups, user groups and other appropriate associated organisations

Ensure that systems exist across the BRC so that the views of patients and the public inform the planning and delivery of BRC services

Key Relationships

Population Sciences Cluster Lead, Population Sciences Cluster Manager, BRC core staff, Populations Sciences Cluster board members, King’s College London Department of Primary Care and Public Health research staff, NIHR topic specific networks, Comprehensive Local Research Networks, PPI leads in other organisations, patient support groups, user groups, patient involvement colleagues, community organisations and individuals, external regional and national and international organisations and colleagues across the KHP networks.

Duties and Responsibilities

Patient & Public Involvement

Support researchers, research staff, patients and the public to work collaboratively on the design, management and dissemination of research across the BRC including one to one advice, the facilitation of meetings and supporting key events such as open days and awareness raising activities

Work with the Populations Sciences Cluster Manager and the five BRC clusters to develop specific and appropriate PPI strategies for each cluster to include supporting members of the public acting in an advisory capacity to the Clusters and BRC executive

Act as a source of information about PPI opportunities across the BRC and ensure that these are effectively promoted in the local community and/ or nationally as appropriate. To include development of promotion materials such as leaflets, newsletter articles and maintaining the public facing pages of the BRC website

Be responsible for the organisation, promotion and facilitation of BRCPPI training for staff. This currently includes two annual workshops as part of the BRC Training Programme and two training sessions co-delivered with the Research design Service London. Other training sessions are provided in response to demand and developing needs

Be responsible for the organisation, promotion and facilitation of training sessions for patients and members of the public to support their involvement with research studies. This currently includes three one day workshops providing members of the public with an overview of the research process and role of patient and public representatives, as well as one off session such as understanding qualitative research which are delivered in response to demand and need

To be responsible for continually evaluate training needs and develop solutions for consideration by the BRC Executive

Work closely with the Research Design Service (London) PPI Lead to ensure a coherent and streamlined service and to avoid duplication of workloads

Support the development and implementation of effective BRC-wide mechanisms to collect and act upon patient and carer views about BRC services, for example a universal study participant evaluation form

Support the organisation of other workshops, conferences, institutional seminars and other events targeted at all stakeholders as appropriate

Promote and publicise the BRC, PPI and PES activities at conferences, meetings and events

Make resources widely available, through any suitable means, to assist colleagues in identifying and using appropriate techniques for patient and public involvement

Work in partnership with other national and local agencies (such as INVOLVE) to raise the profile of PPI in research

Public Engagement with Science

To lead on engaging local communities to gain an understanding of the research information needs of the local population and identifying potential solutions to address these. Methods of engagement are not prescriptive, and the post requires the post holder to be creative and sensitive in their approach to the locally diverse population

To be responsible for developing relationships with the local population by working with primary care networks, community organisations and leaders, patient organisations and charities, as well as schools, support groups and other providers of health services such as voluntary organisations, in order to negotiate opportunities for research activities to take place in community settings, for example public information talks by researchers

To act as a source of information to researchers about potentially opportunities for installing research activities in the community and to actively encourage researchers to take up these opportunities,advising on content and delivery and arranging and delivering training as appropriate

To lead on the implementation and organisation of existing public engagement activities such as the Café Research public discussion forum, and to make recommendations for improvements and opportunities to develop these activities

To support colleagues in the STEM Cluster to undertake and expand current public engagement activities such as the Demonstrating Science educational sessions for schools

To be responsible for the implementation of novel methods of engagement and involvement developed by the Populations Sciences Cluster, for example by piloting new methods of consenting participants to studies

Regularly update the patient and public pages of the BRC website and make information available to other websites including

Work with the Communications Department to publicise actions taken by the BRC as a result of obtaining the views of patients and public involvement

Administration

To be responsible for the facilitation and development of mechanisms for monitoring both PPI and PES activities across the BRC

Produce, and update as required, information about all PPI and PES activities for the Populations Sciences Cluster manager and BRC Executive

Update, revise or create as appropriate PPI and PES information leaflets and resources

Maintain a database of patients and members of the public interested in research for different disease groups, patient involvement groups associated with BRC services and communities in the Trust/University area

Maintain a database recording PPI interventions and outcomes

Ensure that the BRC can demonstrate excellent performance in patient and public involvement through excellent record keeping, up-to-date knowledge of activities and personal testimonies and to provide these as required for BRC, Trust, NIHR and Department of Health reports

Finance

The post holder will be required to maintain accurate records of expenses claimed by members of the public, for example travel and childcare, and to be responsible for informing the Populations Sciences Cluster manager (budget holder) of any unexpected expenditure

To work with the Population Sciences Cluster manager to identify potential opportunities for funding and/or generating income

Policy

Collaborate on future policy developments in relation to patient and public involvement and public engagement, for example payment for involvement

To act as a source of information to the Populations Sciences Cluster Board and BRC Executive on future policy and strategy developments

The post holder is required to follow Trust policies and procedures which are regularly updated including:

Confidentiality / Data Protection / Freedom of Information

Post holders must maintain the confidentiality of information about patients, staff and other health service business in accordance with the Data Protection Act of 1998. Post holders must not, without prior permission, disclose any information regarding patients or staff. If any member of staff has communicated any such information to an unauthorised person those staff will be liable to dismissal. Moreover, the Data Protection Act 1998 also renders an individual liable for prosecution in the event of unauthorised disclosure of information.

Following the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) 2005, post holders must apply the Trust’s FOI procedure if they receive a written request for information.

Information Governance

All staff must comply with information governance requirements. These includes statutoryresponsibilities (such ascompliance with the Data Protection Act),following nationalguidance (such as theNHS Confidentiality Code of Practice) andcompliance with local policies and procedures (such as the Trust's Confidentiality policy). Staff are responsible for any personal information (belonging to staff or patients) that they access and must ensure it is stored, processed and forwarded in a secure and appropriate manner.

Equal Opportunities

Post holders must at all times fulfil their responsibilities with regard to the Trust’s Equal Opportunities Policy and equality laws.

Health and Safety

All post holders have a responsibility, under the Health and Safety at Work Act (1974) and subsequently published regulations, to ensure that the Trust’s health and safety policies and procedures are complied with to maintain a safe working environment for patients, visitors and employees.

Infection Control

All post holders have a personal obligation to act to reduce healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs). They must attend mandatory training in Infection Control and be compliant with all measures required by the Trust to reduce HCAIs.All post holders must comply with Trust infection screening and immunisation policies as well as be familiar with the Trust’s Infection Control Policies, including those that apply to their duties, such as Hand Decontamination Policy, Personal Protective Equipment Policy, safe procedures for using aseptic techniques and safe disposal of sharps.

Risk Management

All post holders have a responsibility to report risks such as clinical and non-clinical accidents or incidents promptly. They are expected to be familiar with the Trust’s use of risk assessments to predict and control risk, as well as the incident reporting system for learning from mistakes and near misses in order to improve services. Post holders must also attend training identified by their manager, or stated by the Trust to be mandatory.

Safeguarding children and vulnerable adults

Post holders have a general responsibility for safeguarding children and vulnerable adults in the course of their daily duties and for ensuring that they are aware of the specific duties relating to their role.

Sustainability

It is the responsibility of all staff to minimise the Trust’s environmental impact by recycling wherever possible, switching off lights, computersmonitors and equipment when not in use, minimising water usage and reporting faults promptly.

Smoking Policy

It is the Trust’s policy to promote health. Smoking, therefore, is actively discouraged. It is illegal within Trust buildings and vehicles.

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