Work with us

What we offer

The Patients Association has six decades of experience of working with patients from all walks of life and supporting organisations to partner with patients and communities to improve services.

We are dedicated to supporting patient organisations to support their engagement with patients and carers.

Our work with our partners is award winning. In July 2023 we were awarded a Gold standard in the Ovid Patient Partnership Index for the AMR Patient Shield Project. This project co-produced resources for patients and carers of things to consider when deciding about antibiotics.

Learn more about our work in four key areas with healthcare organisations and read about some of our recent projects in the sections below. We offer services in:

Patient Engagement

Training and Development

Patient Support

Understanding Patient Perspectives.

If you would like to learn more about how your patient, carer and community engagement work can benefit from working with us, contact our Head of Programmes, Shivani Shah, for more information on our projects and partnerships [email protected]

A guide to establishing a GP practice patient group

As part of the Hertfordshire and West Essex ICB project on invigorating local patient participation groups, it ran a session based on feedback from a survey asking practices what they were struggling with to (re)establish groups after the pandemic and covers:

Step one – recruitment
Step two – setting up and running a meeting
Step three – keeping in touch with the patient group
Step four – communicating with the wider patient population.

Watch the video of the session.

You can also download the slides that go with this session.

The Patients Association also has a toolkit on developing PPGs.

Explore all the resources created by the patient groups in Hertfordshire and West Essex Integrated Care Board.

12th April 2023

Latest

Developing GP practice groups

We've been working with patient participation groups in Hertfordshire and West Essex for more than a year now. In this workshop, the team review progress to date.
Patients Association statement on planned strike action by junior doctors

Festive season strikes will strike fear into patients waiting for care. We urge both parties to return to talks.
Understanding changes in primary care: your wider general practice team

In this webinar, we’ll look at some of the new professionals patients may see in general practice, such as social prescriber, paramedic and mental health practitioner.
Changes in primary care, understanding the role of the reception team

We had a great panel join us to talk about the plan to recover access to primary care and talk about the new reception team.

Developing GP practice groups

We've been working with patient participation groups in Hertfordshire and West Essex for more than a year now. In this workshop, the team review progress to date.
Getting PPGs involved in research

The latest resource from our project with Hertfordshire and West Essex ICB is a workshop looking at why PPGs should think about supporting clinical research.
Communicating with the wider patient population

As part of our project with Hertfordshire and West Essex Integrated Care Board this workshop explores how GP practice patient groups and staff can use different methods of communication to communicate more effectively.
How Patient Participation Groups can support interventions to tackle healthcare inequalities

As part of our project with Hertfordshire and West Essex ICB, patient groups explored how they can support local efforts to tackle health inequalities.
Supporting volunteer members of PPGs

This video from our project with Hertfordshire and West Essex ICB explores the benefits of a diverse volunteer membership of Patient Partnership Groups, what support volunteers need and also a case study from an active volunteer.
Training programmes tailored to your organisation's needs

We are experts in supporting organisations to integrate shared decision making and patient partnership into their culture.
Recruitment, social media, and increasing diversity

In these video, the panel talk about how to recruit and increase engagement in PPGs, as well as social media.
Effectively working together in partnership

This video from our project with Hertfordshire and West Essex ICB is about how patients and practices can work well together for the benefit of both groups.
Reasons for a patient group and what’s in it for the GP practice and patients

This video and accompanying slides shares insights from members of PPGs and a transformation manager from a primary care network. They talk about what makes a good patient group and why the benefit practices and networks.
GP patient group project

We’re working with Hertfordshire and West Essex Integrated Care Board on a community engagement project providing bespoke training to more than 130 patient partnership groups to help them diversify and expand membership. This page describes the project, resources available and links to find them easily.