Heather Loveday 1
1 Director of Research, Richard Wells Research Centre
Partnership between service users and researchers is a cornerstone of the research and development strategy for NIHR in the UK and other international funding agencies. Active service user involvement contributes a diversity of perspectives, ensures proposed projects are relevant to patients and the public and empowers service users to make real contributions to the reduction of HCAI and drive change within healthcare settings. The Service User Research Forum (SURF) was established in response to the wider policy of patient and public engagement in making decisions about healthcare services, treatment choices and priorities and the recognition that many researchers working in the field of infection and microbiology had little experience of working with patients and the public to prioritise, design and conduct research and had little or no access to service users able to contribute to the research process. This presentation will highlight approaches used to develop and sustain SURF and provide examples of how service users contribute their knowledge, experience and insights to benefit HCAI research.