Merry Christmas to Everyone on the LEAP: A Festive Message.

Merry Christmas to everyone on our Lived Experience Advisory Panel (LEAP) for the Primrose project!

After some very minor teething problems, Primrose is now recruiting people with mental health problems at risk of heart disease to the trial. In other words, the service in GP surgeries will soon be trialled to see if it is effective in helping people better manage their physical health and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.

The LEAP has been instrumental in helping with this, as some of you will know we developed a user-friendly information leaflet to recruit people to the trial.

Other news is that three people from the LEAP have been selected to work as peer researchers. This user- led research is currently under development and will start in March 2015 (something to look forward to in the New Year!).

Linking in with the Primrose project, this user- led research will look at why people become engaged in research and health services (or not!). The aim is to improve people’s engagement with research and with health services. This is a small scale study and in-depth interviews will be carried out with up to 20 participants. The peer researchers will be supported and trained to use their own lived experience explicitly within the research process following a participatory and user- led approach.

Finally, a meeting for everyone in the main LEAP is scheduled for Summer 2015 (when it will hopefully be a bit warmer!). We will be in touch with updates, so until then have a great Christmas and New Year!

Many thanks for all your contribution and involvement with the very successful LEAP.