Participació en recerca

What do you see - a bull’s head or a bicycle saddle and handlebars? 

Is health research the saddle or the bull - some people might see the protocol and others live the experience. 

But sometimes it is about more than the way we see each other. The words we use and the way we hear them can separate us.

Even a song can be interpreted differently by various artists and makes you wonder if we should say - Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off. One version of the song by George and Ira Gershwin is sung by Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire and the other gives us Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong.

"But, oh, if we call the whole thing off
Then we must part
And, oh, if we ever part, then that might break my heart"

I mention Picasso's work and these other examples as I have been invited to speak in Barcelona. 

I have the pleasure of working with Paula Adam Bernad and Ion Arrizabalaga Garde from AQuAS, the Agency for Health Quality and Assessment of Catalonia*. 

We have, of course, different perspectives but instead of calling the whole thing off we are working together to shape the presentation I shall give - co-creating!

The differences are encapsulated by...

LANGUAGE - Some Catalonian, Spanish, English and of course a wee nimsh o’ Scots can actually bring us together

VOCABULARY - Participation is what I might call Involvement in England but does this really matter as long as we both are describing the same thing. 

EXPECTATIONS - What I thought might be good to talk about may not actually be of value to those who attend the Conference.

Ultimately, we want to see patient experience, the patient voice and the presence of patients and the public making a difference. But how....

We then began a really interesting and illuminating discourse by phone and email where we tested out different ideas. I began by posing some questions to help guide my thoughts and Paula and Ion asked more about the WHY.

I am moving from what we in the UK call Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) to how it is described in Catalonia - Patient and Public Participation (PPP).

The second theme that we have agreed upon is WHAT MAKES IT WORK. So this will form the basis of the talk along with the question: Què té a veure la pedra Rosetta amb la participació en recerca? 

You will need to revisit my blog on the 4th April to find out more.

* El Sistema d’Avaluació de la Recerca i Innovació en Salut de Catalunya (SARIS) és un instrument del Pla estratègic de recerca i innovació en salut (PERIS) del Departament de Salut de la Generalitat de Catalunya. El SARIS és un ‘sistema de recerca responsable’ que millora l’impacte del PERIS a través de l’anàlisi i la implicació dels actors.