Simon Denegri, NIHR National Director for Public Participation and Engagement in Research, visited the Art and Design Research Centre (ADRC) for a networking lunch at Sheffield Hallam University on 18th December 2013.

In a session chaired by CLAHRC YH Director Sue Mawson and hosted by Lab4Living, staff from Design Futures and Lab4Living demonstrated to Simon how human centred design can respond to the drivers for patient and public involvement in the health and wealth agenda, with a focus on the medical technologies industry. After an introduction to the research centre, its staff and a broad overview of its activity, specific health related case studies were presented to illustrate a range of our unique approaches to engage with industry, patients and the public in co-creation and co-production.

Discussion become very dynamic around the novelty of our use of tangible objects and spaces, combined with virtual forums and more traditional techniques such as surveys, interviews and focus groups, to enable interaction and common understanding between professionals from different disciplines, patients and the public. This was followed by a tour of facilities and a ‘meet-and-greet’ networking lunch open to other academics and clinicians across the city.

At the lunch, Simon expressed a real excitement at ‘finding’ clusters of collaborative activity such as our offering truly innovative approaches to engaging patients, public and industry. He also commented on the renewed focus that NHS England will be bringing to the issue of Patient and Public engagement and mentioned the importance of increasing visibility of groups such as ours.

Clips from Simon's visit will be posted here soon.