PPIE, or Patient and Public Involvement & Engagement (formerly known as PPI), is a process whereby patients and the public are involved as active participants or partners in shaping research studies.

In 2024, the UK NIHR (National Institute of Health Research) shared new goals to strengthen how it collaborates with patients, carers, and the public: Strategic Commitments for Public Partnerships. This marked a major step toward NIHR’s aim of making public partnerships more diverse, inclusive, and meaningful.

There is now a renewed focus on involving patients and the public in health and care research.

In addition to its hugely important Priority Setting Partnership undertaken with the James Lind Alliance between 2023 and 2024, in the late autumn of 2024 Sepsis Research FEAT has been delighted to renew its efforts in the field of PPIE, becoming involved in three new initiatives. The charity will act as the facilitator for involvement from its supporters in key new research proposals ongoing.

Charity supporters have therefore recently been recruited to:

  • a study being led by Professor Joanne McPeake of the University of Cambridge, focusing on understanding how people recover from critical illnesses such as sepsis. Recovery from sepsis is known to vary from person to person. The goal of this project is to create more personalised care that better supports individuals and families.
  • a new research initiative from Dr Zeynep C. Elçioğlu, an Intensive Care Medicine Registrar at Newcastle University, which focuses on understanding the role of the immune system in infections and hospital readmissions in sepsis survivors, and the associated healthcare costs sepsis survivors and their families experience.

Commencing in February of 2025, the charity is also very pleased to be able to support PPIE for the work of Dr Christopher Moxon and Dr Dagmara McGuinness, Senior Clinical Lecturer and Research Associate respectively, at the University of Glasgow’s College of Medical, Veterinary & Life Sciences School of Infection and Immunity. Their Sepsis Treatment by Targeting Antibiotic Released Bacterial Proteins (STTAR-BacPro) project aims to identify safe treatments that could be used to block toxic factors released when antibiotics are used to target bacterial infections. The ultimate goal being to improve outcomes for sepsis patients by reducing blood vessel damage and ischemia (diminished oxygen supply to tissues/organs) and necrosis (the death of body tissue due to the lack of blood supply, which is likely to result in limb amputations).  

Recruitment to STTAR-BacPro will commence in late November of 2024. To find out more visit our PPIE page here. Or to get involved in this project and others contact Sepsis Research FEAT here