Research presented at SRHE conference December 2015 as part of our patient involvement project. Read more and download open educational resources at http://spirit.biologycourses.co.uk

1. Attitudes toward patient
involvement in healthcare science
education among multiple
stakeholder groups
Anvay Deshpande
Panagiotis Grigorios Kyriazis
Kearabiloe Mafohla
Maria Orellana Kehayova
Gemma Scott
Connor Smith-Warren
Vivien Rolfe
University of the West of England
Summer Internship Project 2015

2. This work was presented at the Society for Research
into Higher Education (SRHE) Newer Researcher Conference
In December 2015.
It was presented by two students from the University of the West of England,
Faculty of Health and Applied Sciences.
More details of this patient involvement research can be
found on our website:
http://spirit.biologycourses.co.uk

3. Background
• 2013 revised NHS constitution –
“patients at the heart of the
system”.
• Professional health courses
are now required to embed
‘patient and public involvement’
(PPI) in learning and teaching.
• This applies to our Healthcare
Science Life Science and
Physiological Science BSc Honours.
• Where do we start? What is staff
awareness? What are their
thoughts?

4. On-line
On-campus
On-placement
or in hospital work
Student study locations

5. Physiology obviously includes patients….
Cardiac
physiology
Respiratory &
sleep
physiology

6. But laboratory sciences?
“I work in a lab. I don’t
meet patients”.
This is a new field,
so we have little
information to go on
how to successfully
change mind-sets
and education approaches
toward PPI (Rolfe 2015).
Rolfe V. (2015). Advancing Healthcare Sciences through Staff, Student and Service User
Partnerships. The Journal of Educational Innovation, Partnership and Change, 1 (2).

7. Methods
• Ethical approval gained from UWE Faculty Research Ethics
Committee.
• We used a mixed-methods:
– We drew on initial conversations with the academic team to
scope out ideas for enquiry.
– We conducted semi-structured interviews with academic staff
and patients (plus some video interview). These were recorded
and transcribed verbatim.
– For students who were out on placement and not available for
interview, we developed and tested a questionnaire.
– For NHS staff we carried out 4 interviews that were recorded.
– We used thematic analysis to distil ideas emerging. Themes
were coded, and notes kept by all researchers during the project
were used in discussions as part of the analysis.

8. Results – participant details
• Interviews took place June-July 2015.
• 13 academic staff teaching Healthcare Science
and Biomedical Science.
• 31 student questionnaire responses (total
programme group of 59).
• 3 patient interviews + 4 patient video
recordings.
• 4 audio recordings of NHS staff.

9. Academic Staff Perceptions

10. Staff definitions of patient involvement
– mixed
• Academic teaching staff had mixed views on what PPI
was:
– “Involvement and awareness of the general public in
festivals and engagement programmes in both teaching
and research.” (This actually is a definition of public
engagement in science – something quite different).
– “Having patients for students to understand case studies
and as lay people in committee meetings, giving their
opinion”.
– “I see as being key in terms of insuring that the way we
teach and educate our students is aligned to what is
needed within the provision within the healthcare service”.

11. Positive attitudes toward PPI
– Students need to understand that science is about
people “there is a patient at the end of the test
tube”.
– “When I did my PhD we had one or two visits from
families with cystic fibrosis patients, as part of the
research going on in our laboratory was involving
bacteria causing cystic fibrosis. It was a helpful
exercise and apart from making you more aware,
it makes you to try to help”.

12. Negative perceptions
• Concerns regarding relevance of PPI activities
in science.
– “Not to have PPI just for the sake of including PPI
in programmes”.
– “Not to involve public and patients, just because
they think that it would be important, because
they don’t have any experience or knowledge on
how to teach”.

13. Student Perceptions

14. Awareness of PPI?
“I would define it as involvement of patients
at the structure and delivery of health
services. Also they could be involved maybe
by sharing their experience of their
condition”. (Student definition).

15. Student Perceptions
• Students see PPI important for training and communication
(for physiology) but to build empathy and understanding
(physiology and lab sciences).
– “The utilisation of 'real-life' case studies of a specific pathology to
supplement student learning using patients who suffer with said
diseases, to outline their personal experiences and healthcare plan”.
– “Especially when working with samples of patients, you can get
dehumanised to what the actual samples are”.

16. NHS Scientist Perspective
“There are real people at the end of these
samples. It is not research. It is diagnostic”
(Geneticist).
“We get through an awful lot of samples, we are
just churning through and we don’t often stop
and think what that means to a patient”
(Geneticist).
“You’d go to theatre, harvest a bone marrow,
take it back to the lab and process it…you got to
meet patients, you got to meet their families”
(Haematologist describing bone marrow
transplant).
“No patient contact. Your results will impact on
the care of that patient” (Microbiologist).

17. Patient Perspective
“I’m a firm believer in patient participation because
the whole system benefits….generally procedures are
developed without inputs from people who have to
undergo them (Patient 1)”.
“Something they hadn’t been prepared for, is that,
when they went to see the patient next time they’d
actually died. They hadn’t been prepared, how they
might feel about that. We need to be quite clear about
what are the training or learning needs of students
(Patient 2)”.
“Its not just down to the university or lecturers to
decide what the course content should be (Patient 2)”.
Hospital sites are very challenging. Dealing with other
medical professionals can be very challenging. It may
get you used to dealing with that and something you
might face in your future career (Patient 3).

18. Discussion
• This research has given us a range of stakeholder
perspectives regarding how to embed patient and
public involvement in our science curricula.
• There is a misconception that lab scientists do
not come into patient contact – some do.
• Patients and students more felt that patient
involvement was important in science education
but teaching teams were more cautious.
• We have a good idea of what activities we can
engage PPI in, and the process of
recruitment/induction of patients that we need
to adopt.

19. Acknowledgements
Anvay Deshpande
Panagiotis Grigorios Kyriazis
Kearabiloe Mafohla
Maria Orellana Kehayova
Gemma Scott
Connor Smith-Warren
University of the West of England
Summer Internship Project 2015
led by Dr Viv Rolfe
Internships funded by UWE and
Health Education South West