What are we trying to do?

We are trying to find out what people think about:

• Sharing information about your health. This is also known as ‘health data’. 
• Your health care records being shared within the National Health Service (NHS).
• Your health data being shared with people who do not work for the NHS, for example in social care or Universities.

 

Why is it important?

Information about your health, your ‘health data’, is the backbone of your healthcare. The recent covid-19 pandemic has greatly moved along the capacity of health data, and we want to find out the views of diverse populations in Greater Manchester, about their attitudes and perspectives towards health data and its usage in health and social care settings, and for research purposes.

 

 

How are we doing it?

We aim to conduct hold up to 10 group discussions (focus groups) to explore what people think about health data sharing. These will be in-person or via online video meeting, depending on the preference of participants. This research aims to explore the views from specific groups who views may be seldom heard across the public health forum.

 

In particular, we are interested to hear from groups including (but not limited to):

• Young adults (18-24 years old)
• Those living with a long-term physical or mental health condition
• Individuals from the Black, Asian or minority ethnic community
• Refugees or asylum seekers
• Individuals from the LGBTQ+ community

 

Participation in the discussion groups will remain confidential and everything that is shared in the group discussion will be anonymised (i.e. any identifying information will be removed).

 

If you would like to participate in the research but feel uncomfortable about joining a discussions groups please contact the researchers (details below) and we can discuss the different options available to you.

 

Participants will be given a £25 gift voucher for taking part as a thank you for participating.

 

 

Who are we working with?

Working with community partners and community organisations, we aim to establish an Advisory Group to co-design the format of the focus groups, if you are interested in becoming invovled with the advisory group, please contact our ARC-GM Public and Community Involvement and Engagement Manager:

 

Aneela McAvoy (Aneela.McAvoy@healthinnovationmanchester.com)

 

 

More information

For further information about this work and/if you would like to participate in a focus group, please contact:

 

Stephanie Gillibrand (stephanie.gillibrand@manchester.ac.uk), or 

Kelly Howells (Kelly.howells@manchester.ac.uk)