This inaugural award was made in 2017 by NIHR CLAHRC Northwest London in memory of Brian Turley, a dedicated and committed patient advocate and disability rights campaigner. Brian became involved with NIHR CLAHRC NWL through ‘My Medication Passport’. Together with his mother Margaret, he was a passionate ambassador for the ‘My Medication Passport’.

Brian strongly believed the passport was a way to involve and engage people in their own care and to initiate better conversations with clinicians and other services including the police and the criminal justice system.

Sadly Brian died unexpectedly in February 2016 and in honour of his contribution and as a way to sustain his values and commitment to patient engagement and involvement we extended the award in 2018 to all three CLAHRC programmes in London and introduced two new categories.

The three award categories are:

• Influence Award (for dedicated patients, service users and carers)
• Team Award (for project teams dedicated to working with patients, service users, carers, families and communities )
• Researcher Award (for early career researchers, PhD students, service user researcher and fellows)

The purpose of the awards is to celebrate and promote patient and carer involvement in healthcare research and improvement.

The awards:

·         Raise the profile of involvement

·         Showcase examples from practice

·         Promote reflection and shared learning

·         Discourage ‘tick box practice’