This project focuses on improving healthcare by involving patients in research at Metro North (MN). This research aims to identify and address training and resource gaps in consumer engagement, ensuring that partnerships between researchers and patients are well-supported for genuine and impactful collaboration.

Recognising the value of involving patients in healthcare, Metro North (MN) and national standards prioritise and emphasize the importance of consumer partnerships in research. However, not all collaborations yield positive results. Despite guidelines, some partnerships fall short, revealing a gap between MN's strategic plan and patient-reported experiences. This project is crucial to understanding where training and resource gaps exist. By pinpointing these gaps, the research aims to enhance the quality of partnerships, ensuring that each collaboration is adequately supported.

This project surveyed researchers and consumers to scope Consumer and Community Involvement practices across the Herston Health Precinct, including RBWH and STARS, four MNH research institutes, and two UQ research institutes. 

When health researchers work together with patients and community members, the findings are often more relevant and of higher quality. Findings from this work, showed that consumers are actively involved in research across the Herston health precinct, contributing in many ways—from short, one-off activities to consumers co-leading large research projects alongside researchers.

Consumers described their involvement through motivations, passions, and the significance they place on their consumer work. Researchers also emphasised relationship aspects of consumer involvement, but focused more on processes, planning, and institutional factors.  Some practical ideas include providing better training, making processes more straightforward, having strong leadership, and creating supportive systems. Along with building workforce capacity in engaging with the community through enhanced interpersonal and facilitation training, this work highlighted that trust, flexibility, shared decision-making, and support are essential for genuine consumer partnership in research.

The funding provided by the RBWH Foundation has really helped us to understand where and how consumers are currently contributing to research across the Herston Health Precinct. We could clearly identify the priority areas that need to be addressed, both training needs and organisational development needs, so we can more meaningfully collaborate with consumers in health and medical research. But more importantly, we have learned more about ways to improve experiences for consumers and researchers who partner together to tackle research questions. This is important, we want to help more consumers to work with research teams to identify and explore research questions that are important to our community. Learning how to improve the way we can work together to deliver more meaningful and impactful research for patients is the first step.