Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) Contributor

Following her own experience of poor mental and physical health, Sandra Jayacodi, a former UK solicitor, embarked on her journey as a Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) contributor. In 2016 Sandra became an Improvement Leader Fellow of CLAHRC at Imperial College (Collaborative Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care) now known as ARC (Applied Research Collaboration), working to improve physical health for people with severe mental illness. She currently holds a variety of portfolios including being a peer researcher, coach and trainer, PPIE advisor and contributor to various health care providers in the UK.

Sandra brings the patient, carer and public perspective and needs into health care research, quality improvement, service design and in policy and guidelines. She strongly believes that although many of us may share the same diagnosis of an illness, our lived experiences of it will vary, based on who we are, including our ethnicity, gender, age, deprivation or privilege, and personality.

Sandra is strongly committed to improvement work around patient safety within the health sector and sits as a member of the Public Partner Advisory Group at Imperial Patient Safety Research Centre Board. She is a lay member on the University College London Biomedical Research Centre for the Inflammation, Immunity and Immunotherapeutics Board and is a Service User Advisor on the Improvement Academy Board on the Northwest London Mental Health and Wellbeing Trust.

Sandra believes that lived experiences are pivotal to the design of healthcare services, policy, guidelines, research and quality improvement work. As a patient herself, she strongly advocates for meaningful leadership that is not top down but bottom up, starting with the patient.