Integrated Care Systems Research Engagement Network Development: Community Research Champions

Analysis of racism in UK health research brought together, for the first time, considerable evidence of systemic barriers to ethnic equality across UK health research.

The Ethnicity and Health Unit (EHU) wanted to address these inequalities and sought funding from NHS England’s Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) Research Engagement Network Development (REND) (later titled NHS England’s Integrated Care Systems Research Engagement Network) grant.

Over the last three years, the EHU has secured £470k in funding to run NHS England’s Integrated Care Systems Research Engagement Network (REN) programmes within Northwest London to increase ethnic diversity in health research.

Having gained the £100k grant in round one, the Ethnicity and Health Unit partnered with EHCVS, Integrated Care Board North West London, Primary Care Networks, Academic institutions and Charities, Imperial College’s Patient Experience Research Centre, to engage Northwest London’s most diverse communities in conversations around their health interests and research with a goal to develop a research network reflective of local communities’ challenges and needs.

ICS REN I saw growth in engagement across our Northwest London communities,

ICS REN II focused on addressing barriers to research engagement, focusing on mental health and seldom-heard voices.

ICS REN III explored and co-developed interventions to mitigate these barriers.

We aimed to increase the participation of young people in research by training researchers and conducting workshops with a wide variety of children and young people groups.

The work included taking a visual record of the meetings and providing accessible feedback on the meetings to participants.

What have we done so far?

ICS REND I:

Within 3 months, alongside our partners, we ran 10 Health Roadshows, split equally between Brent and Hounslow.

Residents from these communities who attended could engage in a variety of activities, such as:

• receive free health checks
• visit stands on the day and engage with local organisations
• talk to health professionals and researchers about health issues
• receive cost of living support
• view healthy cooking demonstrations
• receive emotional and wellbeing support
• engage with fellow community members

By the end of ICS REN II:

• Delivered 28 roadshows in Brent, Ealing, Hillingdon and Hounslow.
• 2,278 community members attended the Roadshows
• Conducted 1,200 health checks
• 785 feedback forms completed by Northwest London community members
• 192 attendees registered to participate in a NIHR CRN North West London research project
• 75% of people in attendance said they are willing to take part in research

ICS REN III: Addressing barriers to research engagement, focusing on mental health and seldom heard voices

We explored and co-developed interventions to mitigate four related barriers:

• Researchers’ Skills/Confidence
• Infrastructure
• Translation/Impact
• Barriers from children and young people’s perspectives

The following activities were delivered:

• Identifying gaps and training needs of researchers and delivering two co-designed training workshops for researchers
• Delivering workshops with children, young people and their parents/carers,
• Identifying common barriers within research infrastructure, challenges that could be addressed by peer support from other teams