Patient & Public involvement

The EME programme is committed to effective public involvement in the funding of research, and patient and public involvement is valued highly by the EME Board when assessing research proposals. The EME programme is keen to involve service users in its work: this page explains how you can become involved.

When talking about ‘patients', 'the public' and ‘service users' we mean:

• people who use health and social care services;
• informal carers and families;
• members of the public who may be targeted by public health programmes;
• organisations representing the users of NHS services and community groups.

Patient and Public Involvement EME Board Membership

The EME programme is in the process of appointing members of the public to join the Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation (EME) funding board to ensure that the public are actively involved in health research. Opportuntities to apply for these positions will be posted here when they arise.

Service User Representatives

The EME programme has adopted and adapted INVOLVE's definition of service users. We define 'the public' and 'service users' as patients; unpaid carers; parents/guardians; users of health services; disabled people; members of the public who are the potential recipients of health promotion/public health programmes; groups asking for research because they believe they have been exposed to potentially harmful circumstances, products or services; groups asking for research because they believe they have been denied products or services from which they believe they could have benefited; organisations that represent service users and carers.

More specifically, in order to maximise service user input into the EME programme, service user representatives should be linked to service user/carer networks i.e. they should be able to draw on a wide body of opinion and be able to provide a broad perspective to help at the stage requested in the EME process. To avoid conflicts of interest when supporting the EME programme, a service user representative should not normally be a health practitioner, manager or researcher.

Service User Review

Service user review is the assessment of a research proposal, carried out by a service user representative providing a group perspective. It is a way of checking the importance and appropriateness of research proposals, from the point of view of service users. It is sometimes referred to as service user refereeing.

Service users are particularly well placed to provide an insight into patients' views about health care, their needs for information and support, and patients' relevant experiences in health care settings and everyday life. Therefore they may be considered experts in this area.

The EME programme is constantly seeking service users to act as peer reviewers. If you feel you could help, please visit  to register your interest by visiting the Referees page.