Patient and public involvement (PPI)

Patient and public involvement (PPI) is research carried out ‘with’ or ‘by’ members of the public rather than ‘to’, ‘about’ or ‘for’ them.

PPI participants include patients, carers and healthy volunteers. They represent the patient voice and give feedback on decisions such as:

• how a trial should be run
• whether the trial is asking too much of participants
• whether patient information leaflets and consent forms are understandable

The Southampton Clinical Trials Unit is part of the Wessex Public Involvement Network (Wessex PIN). It brings together clinical staff and the public to improve how the public is involved in research. 

Current opportunities

Explore our current PPI opportunities.

Join our mailing list

If you're a patient, family member or carer and are interested in getting involved in PPI, would like to find out more about being a public contributor, or would like to be added to the distribution list for upcoming PPI opportunities, please get in touch. 

• Email Liz Allaway: [email protected]

Southern Cancer Trials Public Involvement Group

This group is run by the Southampton Clinical Trials Unit, the CRUK Southampton Senior Research Nurse and the Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre (ECMC). 

• To find out more, email Liz Allaway: [email protected]

Contributors' blog

You can hear from some of our current public contributors about why they enjoy being part of research in our Patient Participation Week blog.

PPI handbook

Get the full detail about PPI and how to get involved in our handbook.

Payment policy

Public contributors are reimbursed for their time and out-of-pocket expenses, in line with the NIHR guidelines. Find out more in out PPI payment policy.

Certain groups and communities are under-served by clinical research. In the design and conduct of our trials, we need to ensure PPI reflects the whole population, to encourage more people from diverse backgrounds to take part in research.

Our widening participation projects aims to understand and overcome the barriers that prevent or discourage people from under-served groups from taking part in PPI.

Find out more about the widening participation project.