#ICIC17 is over, and what a great conference it was! Overall it was very heart-warming to see and experience the strong patient and carer voice over the three days, which was felt at a number of levels. On behalf of the 105 patient organisation members in IPPOSI, I wish to thank the IFIC team, and especially Dr Aine Carroll, the HSE’s National Director of Clinical Strategy & Programmes, for putting together such a wonderful event. Some of our IPPOSI-related highlights included:
• Launch of the Irish Patient Narrative Project: IPPOSI unveiled the first outputs of the Patient Narrative Project in the opening plenary session on May 8th. These ‘statements’ and ‘definition’ will be used to define ‘person-centred, coordinated care’, in Ireland. A recording of our ‘fireside chat’ with Anne Lawlor, 22q11 Ireland, Aine Carroll, National Director of Clinical Strategy & Programmes HSE, and Anne O’Connor, HSE Directorate of Mental Health is available here (from 1:55:18 onwards)
• Workshop: IPPOSI hosted a patient-focused workshop entitled: “Putting the patient into person-centred care” on Day 2. Participation in the workshop included representatives from the Advancing Recovery Ireland initiative and we had 70 people in the audience. The report from this workshop is available here.
• Patient involvement: The conference was awarded the #patientsincluded charter which meant that IFIC is committed to incorporating the experience of patients as experts in living with their condition while ensuring they are neither excluded nor exploited. Additionally there were more than 50 patient and carer representatives at the conference who availed of a bursary organised between the HSE, IPPOSI and the IFIC team. A dozen of these individuals accepted invitations to co-chair sessions, thus helping to facilitate a range of workshops, oral poster sessions and plenaries at the conference, which again was wonderful to see.
• Other highlights included the sheer number of patients, carers and their representative organisations who submitted and had abstracts accepted for talks, posters, workshops, stands etc. All in all, a very successful, and person-centered event.
Derick Mitchell
Chief Executive
IPPOSI