Information about payment and expenses, accessibility, wellbeing, safeguarding, confidentiality and use of data.
In this guide
On this page
- Payment and expenses
- Accessibility
- Wellbeing
- Safeguarding
- Confidentiality
- Data collection, storage, and privacy
- Acknowledgement and thanks
Payment and expenses
We offer a payment following an Academy activity to Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) contributors who:
- are a member of the public
and
- are being asked by the Academy to provide their lived experience
and
- are not in receipt of a full-time salary from public funds.
If you work full time in the public sector, you may, by exception, still be entitled to payment of a fee provided that you confirm to us that:
- your paid employment is unrelated to the activity being asked of you by the Academy
and
- you intend to undertake the activity in your free time, such as through taking annual leave or outside your normal working hours.
The payment process
If you need any assistance completing the payment expenses form, please contact a member of the Engagement team. They can advise what information is required, help complete the form out via email or phone or post you a paper copy.
Payment considerations
As payment is direct to your bank account, tax and National Insurance (if relevant) are not deducted. Please note that it is your responsibility to declare this to HMRC if required.
Please note that payment for working with the Academy may affect your tax and benefits circumstances. The Co-Production collective has a useful sheet with further resources if you are unsure of the effect it may have on your personal situation.
While we may be able to offer advice based on our experience as a team, we are not tax or benefits experts and therefore we would recommend seeking further advice from a tax or benefits advisor if you are in any doubt.
Payment rates
We currently pay our participants at a rate in line with 2026 NIHR guidelines, starting at £27.50 per hour, including reasonable self-reported preparation time. This matches other organisations who pay their PPI representatives; however, this rate is subject to change, and we will continue to review this regularly.
For certain roles when working with us, such as being a chair of a group, a different rate of payment will be more appropriate given the nature of your involvement. This will be discussed with you, individually, in advance of taking on these roles.
We anticipate that the preparation time needed for an activity will be no longer than the duration of the activity itself, for example, up to two hours preparation time for a two hour meeting. However, we appreciate some activities, such as giving a presentation, may require more preparation time. Some people may also require preparation time than others.
We will reimburse travel, accommodation, and other related costs when attending in-person events. If travel and accommodation are required, we will be in contact with you in advance to discuss the options available.
We also offer £5.00 per activity towards internet and other material costs for remote activities, such as pens and paper.
If a contribution towards another resource would help you to participate in Academy activities more fully, for example, a contribution towards paying a carer or personal assistant, please contact us to discuss what might be possible. Please note that we can only reimburse you for costs created because of your work with us and not for something you already had in place.
If you have any questions about payment and expenses, please contact a member of the Engagement team who will be able to give more detail about these policies.
Accessibility
We try to make our events, both remote and in-person, as accessible as possible. This includes continuing to review our policies. However, we encourage two-way communication around accessibility. If there are any specific needs you have or if there is anything we can do to improve our policy, please let us know and we will try to accommodate these.
Many of our sessions are held remotely, over Zoom or Teams. This allows us to collaborate with people all over the country easily, without having to take the time to travel to a shared location. We can facilitate this to cater for different needs, for example using captioning for all speakers on a video call.
If you have any concerns about using technology, please let us know in advance and we will be happy to practice using the technology ahead of time.
Preparation material for working with us will be sent by email. However we can provide a physical copy by post if requested with at least one week’s notice. Please also let us know if you require information in an alternative format, such as using a larger font.
Wellbeing
When working with the Academy on a project, we’ll always prioritise your wellbeing. If at any stage during a project you feel you need to take a break from involvement, please let a member of the team know so that we can check in with you and make sure you aren’t called on until you feel ready to be involved again. We can also signpost you to further support if you feel this would be beneficial.
We have a Safe Space Policy. All attendees at our events are required to read and follow this policy, including before and after the event. If you wish to report a breach of the policy, please contact a member of the team.
If there is something during a project which makes you feel unsafe or uncomfortable, please let a member of the Engagement team know immediately. If you are not comfortable approaching a member of the Engagement team or your concerns relate to someone within the team, please contact our Director of Communications and Engagement Nick Hillier on [email protected].
Safeguarding
The Academy takes its duty of care to participants very seriously. All of members of our Engagement team have passed Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks and have completed basic safeguarding training. We also have a safeguarding policy and safeguarding leads in place.
If at any point you feel uncomfortable or unsafe when working with the Academy, please let any member of staff know as soon as possible, who will alert the Safeguarding lead for the event.
We are always open to improving our safeguarding processes, so please do contact us if you would like more information or to provide feedback.
Confidentiality
You can always expect your contributions to Academy projects to be treated in a confidential manner unless stated otherwise. This means that your individual contributions will only be shared with people working directly on the project, and they will be anonymised (and usually combined with others) in any materials that will be shared more widely.
However, if this work is published you will be attributed and credited for your contributions. This will be discussed with you for each project, as no two projects are the same.
We ask all participants in our work to treat each other with the same respect and to not share what they have heard from others without consent. This includes protecting personal details such as medical history or other protected characteristics of other participants and not discussing other sensitive information such as unpublished research data or policy details with people not involved in a particular project.
Data collection, storage, and privacy
All your data will be held in accordance with the Academy’s privacy policy.
If you have any questions or concerns about how data is collected and stored at the Academy, you can contact our Senior Business Information Manager Toby Jenkins for further information via [email protected].
Acknowledgement and thanks
The Engagement team would like to thank all those who have worked on creating, drafting, and improving guide, including our PPI contributors who made sure it was useful for all.
We always welcome feedback – please tell us how we can improve this informationor any of our other work to fulfil our mission and/or better support you by contacting the Engagement team at [email protected].