Welcome to the Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) Quality Mark digital tool.

We recommend that you read through all of the information below before accessing the digital tool for the first time.  

Access the tool via our website.

Feedback on the Quality Mark

• This is the first version of the Quality Mark and we are aware that improvements/amends may need to be made
• We have created a short survey where you can provide feedback on the Quality Mark or alternatively contact srbmh@manchester.ac.uk. We also welcome resources, templates and case studies (internal and external).

Introduction

Involving and engaging patients and members of the public with lived experience (public contributors) is important to us because so much of what we do as a Faculty and University, from teaching clinical skills to scientific breakthroughs benefits local communities and further afield.

Public contributors bring unique and valuable insights and are integral to our teaching and research. It is therefore essential to recognise the achievements of projects/activities and to support our staff, students and public contributors to successfully embed Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE).

Background

High quality PPIE is important in supporting an open, inclusive and accessible research and teaching culture. There are many ways that this can be achieved, and the Quality Mark is one example.

Kay Gallacher, public contributor, and co-chair of the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health’s (FBMH) PPIE Forum, came up with the idea of creating a tool to help self-assess and ultimately improve the quality of PPIE. Find out more about this on our blog.

Members of the FBMH PPIE Forum, (a group comprised of public contributors, staff and students), embarked on creating the draft criteria of what is now known as the ‘PPIE Quality Mark’ (formerly the PPIE Chartermark).

Public contributors are at the heart of the Quality Mark and have been involved in all aspects of its creation. Their involvement must be an integral aspect of PPIE and the Faculty’s work and not simply a tick-box exercise.

Meet the Team

• 

  Dr Hawys Williams

  Social Responsibility and Public Engagement Manager

  Email Hawys

• 

  Kay Gallacher

  Public contributor and co-chair of the Faculty's PPIE Forum

  Email Kay

• 

  Sam Franklin

  Social Responsibility Project Officer

  Email Sam

What is the PPIE Quality Mark?

The Quality Mark is a standard/tool created to improve the quality of PPIE. The aim of the Quality Mark is to aid you in self-assessing, self-reflection or the planning and implementation of your PPIE activity/project.

The Quality Mark features a clear set of standards in the form of 10 criteria and can be used in many different ways, including as a;

self-assessment tool, checklist for conducting PPIE, self-reflection tool or for signposting to resources.

By completing the Quality Mark as a self-assessment tool, you can award yourself a bronze, silver or gold award. This is dependent on the level of criteria you can attribute to your project/activity.

We hope that the different award levels will encourage accountability and continued improvement.

Find out more below:

How the Quality mark works

Before making the Quality Mark widely available, we wanted to find out if using the Quality Mark as a self-assessment tool really does improve PPIE in practice. We also wanted to test the suitability of the 10 criteria, and the tool’s usability for a range of research and, further down the line, teaching projects.

For this, we (see research team above) were awarded a part-time Open Research Fellowship, funded by Research England to undertake this work, through The University of Manchester. The project received UREC ethical approval: Ref: 2024-18525-3290

We conducted an online survey, several focus groups and one-on-one interviews with approximately 80 participants taking part. We then used the data to review the Quality Mark and its criteria and made amends where required. From this, the digital interactive version of the Quality Mark was created.   

'90% of participants stated that the Quality Mark is a good idea and think that it will help people in conducting PPIE.'

Points to note

PPIE brings a host of benefits to our research, teaching and ultimately to the wider public, through more robust, open, relevant, and meaningful practice.

The Quality Mark aims to benefit staff, students, public contributors and ultimately your PPIE by ensuring that you are producing good quality and inclusive PPIE. By indicating best practice in several essential areas, it provides you with a framework to guide you and strive towards.

Including good practices helps to limit risks and ensures that your PPIE is ethical, respectful, responsible and effective. It will also limit any issues which may arise through thorough planning.

The Quality Mark will aid you in setting a high standard for your PPIE and will signpost you to resources for further help and advice. It also enables you to create your own action plan (which you can download from the digital tool) and is also a useful training tool.

Example of a Quality mark that has been awarded

The Quality Mark is a digital tool, which provides you with a clear set of standards in the form of bronze, silver or gold criteria. It is open to staff, students and public contributors to complete and can be used at any stage of a project/activity. The levels are indicators of where your project/activity currently is at and can be amended as your project/activity advances.

We appreciate that time is limited, and we don’t want to add to anyone’s workload. We therefore created the Quality Mark with this in mind, aiming for it to be simple, flexible and of benefit to a wider audience. We anticipate that it can take approximately 15-30 minutes to complete.

There is a notes page to document your evidence and make suggestions for further improvement.

We understand that not all criteria will be relevant for your PPIE projects/activities. We therefore created the Quality Mark to be flexible and used for a range of circumstances.

Type	Description
Self-assessment	You will work through each criteria and award yourself the level which describes your work.
	Projects/activities/groups can award themselves a bronze, silver or gold award.
	You can then display the award logo on your website pages, project outputs, email signatures etc. which you will be able to download from the Quality Mark.
	If some of the criteria isn’t relevant to you, you can also award yourself a bronze, silver or gold award for a specific criteria e.g. “I’m a gold standard in the involvement criteria”
Checklist for conducting PPIE	You can select only the criteria relevant to your project/activity and assess what you need to do to ensure that you meet a good standard of PPIE practices e.g. an area that you would like to develop further or require further guidance in
	You can award yourself a bronze, silver or gold award for a specific criteria e.g. I’m a gold standard in the involvement criteria
Reflective tool	Each criteria will allow you to reflect on your own PPIE practices. This can help you focus on the areas that may need improving and can be used in your reporting to showcase areas that
Discussion points or as a training tool	You can select a specific criteria to either aid as a discussion or training tool. This can help you focus on the areas that may need improving or showcasing areas that you excel in
	You can award yourself a bronze, silver or gold award for a specific criteria e.g. I’m a gold standard in the involvement criteria

Quality mark award levels

We have created a glossary of terms which you can access on our website.

Quality mark award criteria

What is the Quality Mark?

The Quality Mark is a digital tool to aid you with the assessing, planning and/or implementation of your PPIE project/activity

I’m from an external organisation, can I use the Quality Mark and its associated resources?

The Quality Mark is property of The University of Manchester, however it is accessible for everyone to use on a Creative commons licence. The majority of resources are open to everyone, however some of the resources may be restricted to staff and students at The University of Manchester e.g. the ethics decision tool.

Who can use the Quality Mark?

Staff, students and public contributors can all use the Quality Mark. It is for people new or experienced in PPIE and can be used either as a planning and implementation tool, or as a tool for you to refresh/reflect on your PPIE

What happens if a criteria isn’t relevant or feasible for my project/activity or budget?

We understand that not every Quality Mark criteria is relevant for all PPIE projects/activities and have created the Quality Mark with this in mind. You can also award yourself a bronze, silver or gold standard for individual criteria rather than the whole project.

Quality Mark award levels

There are three main levels of awards; bronze, silver and gold. Each criteria is given a specific amount of points e.g. bronze = 1 point, silver = 2 points, gold = 3 points.

To gain the overall award you will need to achieve the following:

Bronze – 5-10 points

Silver – 11-20 points

Gold – 21-30 points

You can also receive a ‘working towards award’ for any of the levels.

You can also award yourself a bronze, silver or gold for an individual criteria.

Other things to consider

As well as the criteria listed in the Quality Mark, we would also recommend that you consider the below:

Ethics

Some PPIE projects require ethical approval. To find out if your project requires approval visit the University’s ethical approval tool.

Risk assessment

We recommend that all PPIE projects are risk assessed. You can download the risk assessment template on our website.

PPIE standards

It is critical that we involve and engage the public to the highest possible standards. To this end, the Faculty’s PPIE Forum has drafted aspirational standards. View the standards on our website.

Governance

The Faculty has a dedicated PPIE governance structure. Find out more on our website.

 

Top tips

• We recommend involving public contributors from the beginning e.g. during the formulation of your activity/project
• Plan your PPIE from the start
• think of your audience and consider the best activity for them
• evaluate and regularly ask for feedback from public contributors
• think of what you want the intended outputs to be as this may reflect whether ethical approval is required
• be flexible, no project/activity goes exactly to plan so you may need to change your process part-way

 

Rewards and recognition

PPIE awards

Since the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health (FBMH) was formed in 2016, we have hosted an annual Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) celebration event.

Our initial aim for the event was to celebrate the positive impact of PPIE across the Faculty. To support this aim, we featured the Faculty’s ‘Outstanding Contribution to PPIE’ awards. The awards recognise the inspirational and outstanding commitment to PPIE that has made a positive difference to our community. Open to staff, students and public contributors, the nominations are divided into several categories, including: newcomer, individual, groups and one off projects/events.

Find out more on our blog.

PPIE blog

We also have a dedicated blogsite where we aims to update staff, students, and members of the public about the wealth of Social Responsibility and PPIE activities taking place within the Faculty. 

If you would like to submit a blog for this site, please email srbmh@manchester.ac.uk.

What is next for the Quality Mark?

We would like to add more resources specifically related to the 10 criteria. If you would like to submit a resource, please email srbmh@manchester.ac.uk.

We would also like to develop the Quality Mark for other PPIE projects e.g. teaching.

If you would like to input into this, please contact srbmh@manchester.ac.uk.

 

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the staff, students and public contributors who have been involved in the Quality Mark in some way.

- Critical friends

- PPIE Charter (formally the Quality Mark) pilot testers

- PPIE Forum

- Open Research Office

- E-learning team

- Participants in the research project

Further Information and contact details:

To view information, templates and resources created specifically for PPIE related activities visit the Faculty’s PPIE Toolkit.

For further information about PPIE within the Faculty including events, training and funding opportunities sign up to the monthly Public Engagement digest, visit the Faculty’s PPIE website and PPIE blog, follow @FBMH_SR on Twitter or email the Social Responsibility and Public Engagement Team srbmh@manchester.ac.uk.