The College's commitment to PPI

The RCoA is committed to strengthening the voice of patients in its work. We want to empower our patient representatives to speak with a strong voice and showcase how their contribution has an impact on our activities.

We also want to develop new and impactful patient engagement models to achieve a more agile and flexible approach which enhances the experience of the volunteers working with us on a variety of projects, from accreditation and the training of anaesthetists, to the production of patient information and our research projects.

We will do this by:

• supporting PatientsVoices@RCoA, our core group of patient representatives, and increasing the diversity of the patients’ voices we work with.
• defining our vision and own strategy for the development of more impactful patient and public involvement in the College over the coming years.

Our strategic aims for Patient and Public Involvement at the RCoA

The Patient and Public Involvement strategy focusses on four strategic aims, supported by tailored objectives.

1 Championing and embedding the voice of patients in what we do

We want to hear the voices of patients much louder across the work of the RCoA and ensure that the patient experience of anaesthesia and perioperative care is at the heart of what we do. To achieve this we will:

• empower PatientsVoices@RCoA, to become more visible and raise their profile
• actively seek meaningful contributions from PatientsVoices@RCoA and other patient groups to ensure that the views of patients are at the centre of what we do
• provide opportunities for patients’ voices to have a presence at RCoA events, communication channels, including social media and publications
• be smarter about how we utilise the available resource and adopt a ‘quality over quantity’ approach to patient and public involvement
• foster an organisational culture change so that it becomes second nature for teams and clinical leads to give careful thought to how they can achieve meaningful patient and public involvement at the right time for different RCoA activities.

2 Educating and engaging with the public about anaesthesia and perioperative care

We are keen to further develop our communications to patients and the public. We want to inform them about our work and the important role of anaesthesia and perioperative care in healthcare. We also want to educate them on how to achieve healthier outcomes and make the right decisions about their care. To achieve this we will:

• communicate the work we do in a way that is accessible and relevant to patients and the public by providing publications specifically tailored for a non-medical audience
• continue to build on our portfolio of PIF TICK accredited patient information resources to help patients prepare for anaesthesia and surgery and support shared decision making
• galvanise public opinion and utilise the patient voice to support the RCoA’s aims and campaigns
• extend our reach into media channels aimed at members of the public or specific groups to enable us to reach our target audiences and communicate better our messages.

3 Pursuing excellence in patient and public involvement

We want all patients’ voices working with us to have a positive experience of volunteering with us and for effective patient and public involvement to be everybody’s responsibility. To achieve this we will:

• ensure that our patients’ voices feel valued and engaged with the activities that we involve them in and evaluate their experience by gathering feedback through periodic surveys and individual feedback
• explore different methods of engaging with patients’ voices, which enable them to make a meaningful contribution and are tailored to individual projects and activities
• establish a wide network of PPI champions across College directorates
• embed PPI in the governance structures of the RCoA, so that it achieves equal status with other functions and all Directorates have PPI objectives in their operational plans
• equip PPI and RCoA staff, Committee/Board Chairs and clinical leads with the skills required to deliver effective patient engagement activities
• invest in the resources required to grow the patient and public involvement function at the RCoA to allow it to reach its full potential, including support for income generation activities to deliver PPI projects.

4 Striving to include the diverse voices of patients in what we do

We are committed to ensuring that RCoA PPI activities are representative of the diverse voices of patients. To achieve this we will:

• strive to increase the diversity of our PatientsVoices@RCoA group by providing different methods of engagement
• build a diverse community of patients to support our engagement activities and whose experiences we can use to inform our work
• reach out to specific patient communities and lived experiences to ensure we are engaging with the right patients’ voices for different PPI activities, including working with relevant partners and engagement experts to achieve this
• build links and collaborate with relevant organisations to bring in a greater breadth of expertise, patients’ experiences and views to our PPI projects
• provide accessible information to patients on anaesthesia and perioperative care and strive to produce resources in different formats to meet the needs of different communities of patients.