Macmillan and the National Institute for Health Research have been working together to ensure more resources are available across the UK to support members of the public to get involved in health and social research. We are also working to support researchers in making better use of the skills and experiences members of the public can bring to developing and shaping research.
We run a course which works around a series of interactive discussions and activities involving professionals and members of the public. Crucially, we worked to make the course and supporting resources relevant to any type of health and social research, including cancer, with a range of supporting learning resources also available for free online. It takes place over one day, usually from 10am until 4pm.
If Macmillan is not already running a course in your area, we can pay to send a facilitator anywhere in the UK. We have run courses with a range of organisations and groups across the UK already working together to support patient involvement in research. If you're interested in organising a course with us, please get in touch.
We recognise that any work we do should be sustainable and should encourage local ownership. That's why we've been working with local organisations to help them identify and develop local people to facilitate this course. Our ambition is that local organisations will be able to pay local people to use our resources and run our free courses. Macmillan's resources can then be focussed on training new facilitators and ensuring quality and consistency with our Quality Assurance framework which we use for every course. Would you like to be trained to facilitate this course? Could your organisation support someone to be trained to facilitate this course? Get in touch.
One of Macmillan's values is that we are open. We understand that collaboration is the only way we can help improve the lives of everyone affected by cancer. We are open-minded and inclusive. That is why we want to share our expertise and experience with each other and the wider world. We hope that our work with the National Institute for Health Research is just the beginning. Because we're not afraid of letting go, we are interested in hearing from any individuals or organisations who are interested in building on our work. For more information get in touch.