In 2025, we partnered with 41 Patient and Public Partnership (PPP) representatives and increased their activity across our work to deliver person-centred services.
Patient and public partnership is central to how we develop, design and improve our screening programmes. We believe that our screening services are stronger and more effective when they are shaped by the people who use them. Since 2019, our PPP members have played a vital role in bringing their lived experiences and unique perspectives to help us make screening accessible, equitable and person-centred.
Increased activity in 2025
We successfully recruited 14 new PPP representatives in 2024. This meant we were able to provide more opportunities for them to take part in our projects and activities this year.
We increased the number of:
- committees they take part in
- projects they work on
- training and development opportunities.
Our PPP took part in over 70 projects and activities throughout the year.
Committee representation
We have PPP representatives on 11 of our committees including quality assurance, equity and artificial intelligence. We support them to take part by meeting with them in advance of the first committee meeting and sharing the agenda. We provide a contact person to support them to become familiar with the work of the committee and a guide to help them understand our technical language.
Projects
Our PPP took part in over 30 projects this year.
These included:
- providing feedback on draft content or co-designing resources, including programme reports, information guides, screening participant letters and the HSE’s plain language guidelines
- helping to develop BreastCheck information for the HSE Health App
- doing media interviews and sharing their stories on social media to encourage people to choose screening
- support for research projects.
Training and development opportunities
We provide training and learning opportunities for our PPP.
In 2025, they attended:
- our quarterly research webinars
- training on disability awareness, assisted decision making and understanding equity in screening
- a workshop on our communications toolkit.
Supporting external activities
There is growing awareness of our PPP. Other organisations are inviting our PPP to take part in their activities.
In 2025:
- the Health Information and Quality Authority invited us to nominate 3 PPP representatives to be part of their expert advisory group on BreastCheck
- University College Cork invited 3 PPP invited to collaborate on a cervical screening research application.
Sharing our partnership work
Some of our PPP representatives attended and presented about our partnership work at the 2025 HSE Patient and Public Conference in September.
- We presented about our successful 2024 PPP recruitment campaign.
- We had a poster presentation about a successful co-designed social media campaign.
Meetings and networking
We held three PPP committee meetings in 2025. Our annual PPP network meeting took place in November when we reviewed our partnership work throughout the year. We also discussed plans for the year ahead.
As part of the annual network day, we brought our PPP members to visit the Breakthrough Cancer Research Cancer Revolution exhibition at Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre. The exhibition features 3 of our PPP representatives telling their story of taking part in our cancer screening programmes.