Greta Brunskill, our Public Partnerships Manager, reflects on the value of growing our connections with community groups.

In July, Jana Suklan and I took a beautiful scenic drive to the Cheviot Centre in Wooler, Northumberland to talk with people living in rural communities about our work. The opportunity arose through our connection with The Glendale Gateway Trust. This charitable community development trust was set up in 1996 to benefit the rural community of Glendale, one of the most sparsely populated areas in England.

Exploring the challenges in rural communities

We discussed one of our current collaborative projects, which is examining a new test which may help to diagnose a severe type of stroke faster.

Eight people generously gave their time (and left their sunny gardens!) to come and meet with us to share their views. We learned such a lot about the challenges people face in this area when accessing urgent medical care for conditions like strokes. Due to these challenges, the group felt that the potential value of a new quicker test for stroke in rural, isolated communities could be even greater than in other areas. We are grateful for the interest and energy shared by the Wooler group and are delighted that they are keen to stay in touch with us. We look forward to a further conversation with them in the autumn.

Building relationships with the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector

As well as the learning we took from the event, our experience of working with The Glendale Gateway Trust has been brilliant. Before joining the HRC, I had a Research Partnerships role at Voluntary Organisations’ Network North East (VONNE). My role focused on building better partnerships between health researchers and organisations like the Glendale Gateway Trust who are part of the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector. I would often speak to research teams about the value of working with VCSE organisations when trying to involve more diverse people in their research. This is particularly because of the deep and trusted relationships that VCSE organisations have with the communities they support. I feel incredibly fortunate to have experienced this first hand.

I would like to thank Karen and Gemma at the Glendale Gateway Trust for their willingness to work with us. They really helped to make our first event a successful one. It is clear they are trusted and well regarded in the community. Within just a few days we had a great response to the poster invite! We are very grateful for our connection with the group and the Glendale Gateway Trust. We are excited about our continued work together. I would also like to acknowledge and thank David Burgess, a Public Co-applicant on the stroke project who helped us to prepare this activity.

We are actively growing our connections with the public as we involve them in our work.

Please e-mail me if you know of any other community groups or organisations who would be interested in connecting with us. I can be reached at: greta.brunskill@newcastle.ac.uk

Find out more about the project by following this link: https://hrc-techeval.nihr.ac.uk/impact_posts/evaluating-diagnostics-for-suspected-stroke/