When are the meetings? 

The User Group meetings alternate between Mondays and Thursdays, where possible, so that as many people as possible can attend. Tea and coffee is usually provided, so too are reasonable travelling expenses and other necessary costs to enable participation. Meetings are held at Warwick Medical School in Coventry. The actual dates are subject to room availability and may have to change.

Each meeting is chaired by the Chairperson. Research and education staff from Warwick Medical School are invited to come to the meeting to discuss their work with us. We have an agenda that sets out the topics to be discussed at each meeting. Potential content of meetings include:    

• Developing proposals and ideas both from the research or education team and the user group.
• Questionnaires, Ethical issues, Patient recruitment, Implications of research for users.
• Disseminating research findings such as informing own Diabetes UK volunteer group,  through contacts with health care professionals and others.
• Feedback of the progress of research studies.

The agenda and any documents for review and discussion are sent out to you at least a week before the meeting. 

Do I get paid for being involved?

Members currently attend meetings and undertake reading at home on a voluntary basis. Our user group re-visits this decision from time to time to ensure members are comfortable with this. Nationally the Department of Health also make recommendations about this.

Expenses

We do pay travelling and other expenses (e.g. babysitting) to members and fund conference attendance where resources allow. We fund our user involvement work (e.g. members expenses, newsletter production, training) from research grants. We charge the research funder £75 for every month of the life of the study. The administrative and research time is funded by Warwick Medical School through the salaries of the university members involved. 

Dates for 2011

Dates for 2011 include:  

• Thursday January 27th
• Thursday April 14th
• Monday July 4th (the 10th anniversary)
• October date to be confirmed

All meetings start at 2.0 pm and finish at 4.0 pm.