Help from Experts by Experience for Researchers (HEER) group is a well-established service user research group supporting researchers to develop their research with a patient-centered focus.

We are HEER!

We are a group of service users and carers established in 2006. We all have lived or learned experience of mental health services, and we’re passionate about research.

We provide our time and expertise to improve mental health research outcomes.

The HEER group members:

• are passionate about research,
• have lived and learned experience
• feel that mental health research can be better when we work together.

What we do

We support researchers through all parts of their research project from idea to design and on to sharing the results. We provide guidance on how to improve and make the research more appropriate, relevant and accessible to service users. We help to make good research.

We meet on a monthly basis and the meetings are currently running as hybrid so you can attend in person or virtually.

Read an interview with one of our members and find out what we do  Interview with a HEER member

Joining the HEER or attending as a researcher

Please contact the Research and Development department if you would like to express an interest in joining the group.

Please also get in touch If you think that the Leeds and York Partnership Foundation Trust might provide a population for your research. The HEER group can help you shape design, improve recruitment and review the appropriateness of methods and language.   We are an established Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) group.  Recent feedback on group involvement includes:

“We made changes to language used, we discussed and used feedback to inform ideas about placement of a device and procedure in a ward intervention. We also asked the group about preferences and feelings about data collection methods (observation on wards), the feedback we received was around how to introduce this sensitively to service users on wards which may have been done differently without this advice. The HEER group also made suggestions about where the current research could lead and what might need to be done next – essentially informing future research priorities.”

You can email us at research.lypft@nhs.net.

Or call us on 0113 855 2387.