This online seminar was presented by The NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement and Involve

Armchair Involvement is an NHS Institute online platform where you can build your skills and review best practice in the field of online health engagement and technology. In a time of rapid cuts and change across the NHS new technologies can transform health services and engage the public, patients and staff in improving services in new and more effective ways. We want to introduce these exciting technologies to you through the Armchair Involvement project.

The partnership ran an interactive, half day Master Class to do just this on the 22nd September. The training session increased participant's understanding of the methods both in order to help embed them within their own work and to support others within their organisation to do so. 

For more information visit the Involve website or contact Thea Shahrokh on thea@involve.org.uk

Simon Burall, Director of Involve explains on the Open Democracy website Our Kingdom that although the new government proposal to allow the public to determine how development aid is spent has come under heavy criticism, if implemented correctly, MyAid could harness the knowledge of citizens and help build support for rising aid budgets. Read the full article here.

This seminar, run in partnership with Involve and the Office for Public Management, is part of OPM's long-running series of Public Interest Seminars. The seminar will focus on the the future of patient and public engagement in health and how this might work in the face of public health reforms. The seminar will draw upon the experiences of a range of organisations including local authorities, health bodies from the private and voluntary sector and patient groups. This seminar will take place 11 October 2010 at the OPM offices. See here for further details.

In spring 2010 the Science for All Expert Group produced a report which reviewed the current public engagement landscape, outlined a vision for public engagement with the sciences and laid out a roadmap for future development in the area.

The report highlighted a need to 'create a wider understanding of why, when and how the public engages with the sciences' and included an action to 'develop a common framework to describe types/purposes of public engagement'.

In June 2010, the Science for All Follow Up Group decided to develop a practical tool to help people who work in public engagement to have constructive conversations about what type of engagement is appropriate for different aims/situations.

A number of senior practitioners, including Involve Director Simon Burrall, provided input to discussions and a workshop which led to the development of a tool intended to fulfil the above remit. The tool and further details about what it hopes to achieve can be found here.

The Science for All group would now like people who work in public engagement to trial the tool and feedback their thoughts on whether it is a useful tool to help them have a constructive conversation around public engagement.

Involve would like to encourage you to visit the website, download the tool and try it out. Comments and thoughts on the tool are welcomed - these can be submitted either on the website itself or via a short survey linked to the site. The deadline for submission of comments is the 8 October 2010. Please also forward this invitation to anyone else that may have an interest in the development of this tool.