PPI
Patient & Public involvement is at the heart of the Health Service Executive (HSE), St. James’s Hospital and the Clinical Research Facility (CRF). Participating in Clinical Research can assist in delivering a quality health service, can enhance patient outcomes and provide excellent partnerships between patients and clinical staff.
- The CRF PPI ‘HEART’ initiative is concerned with empowering individuals to have a voice within the research process at all stages.
What is Patient & Public Involvement in Research?
- “Research being carried out ‘with’ or ‘by’ members of the public rather than ‘to’, ‘about’ or ‘for’ ‘them’ (INVOLVE, 2014)
- The goal of effective PPI is to create a valued partnership between the public, patients & researchers to ultimately improve research quality, relevance & outcomes (IHR, 2015).
Why involve patients & public members in research?
- To ensure patients are informed about research that is relevant to them.
- To understand their needs & what they want.
- Improve design, conduct & dissemination of research.
- To make a difference to patient & population health outcomes
The role of PPI Officer in SJH CRF:
- Plans and facilitates PPI involvement, participation and engagement.
- Develops PPI initiatives with tangible goals e.g. vidi-script on hospital wi-fi informing users of the CRF and ongoing research within the Hospital.
- Provides advice and guidance on involving patients and public in research
- Assists with the PPI section of research proposals
- Acting as a liaison between investigators and patient groups
- Facilitates PPI groups
- Helps disseminate research results to the public
For more information, contact Eilis at eiotoole@tcd.ie or 014103906

Patient and Public Involvement Lead
Eilis O’Toole is the Patient and Public Involvement Lead within the CRF and believes through effective and meaningful engagement, patient outcomes can be improved. Eilis works towards embedding Patient & Public Involvement training for all career level investigators having experience lecturing at MSc level. She aims to support investigators with their PPI endeavours assisting them to involve patients in terms of grant applications, priority setting, study design, study conduct , interpretation and dissemination events.
- Clinical Research PPI Working Group (CR-PPI-WG)
- UKCRF Network PPI
- Trinity HRB PPI Ignite Programme
It is Eilis’ vision that one day within Clinical Research patients will see for themselves the massive impact their involvement can have on tomorrow’s healthcare.