Purpose
The purpose of this protocol is to set out the aims, objectives and commitments of the MS Priority Setting Partnership (PSP) and the basic roles and responsibilities of the partners therein.
Steering Group
The MS PSP will be led and managed by the following:
Patient representative/s:
- MS Society – members (people with MS)
Karen Chong, Roger Bastow, Gwen Covey-Crump, Paul Bull
- MS Society – Research Team
Nick Rijke, Ed Holloway, Doug Brown, Mital Patel
Clinical representative/s:
- UK MS Specialist Nurses Association
Grace Hazlett
- UK MS National Therapy Centres
Neil Kemsley, Chair
- Association of British Neurologists
Waqar Rashid,
Richard Warner, Specialist MS Nurse, Gloucestershire Neurology Service
Richard Nicholas, Consultant Neurologist, Imperial College Health Care NHS Trust
The Partnership and the priority setting process will be supported and guided by:
- The James Lind Alliance (JLA)
Sally Crowe
- UK DUETs
Mark Fenton
- Independent Information Specialist
Ann Daly
The Steering Group includes representation of patient/carer groups and clinicians.
The Steering Group will agree the resources, including time and expertise that they will be able to contribute to each stage of the process. The JLA will advise on this.
Background to the MS PSP
The JLA is a project which is funded by the National Institute for Health Research with support from the Medical Research Council. Its aim is to provide an infrastructure and process to help patients and clinicians work together to agree which are the most important treatment uncertainties affecting their particular interest, in order to influence the prioritisation of future research in that area. The JLA defines an uncertainty as a “known unknown” – in this case relating to the effects of treatment.
This PSP is funded by the MS Society and supported by the James Lind Alliance and UK DUETs. The MS Society is involved in another PSP in Pressure Ulcers, funded by the National Institute for Health Research.
The MS Society is keen to use this exercise to set the agenda for research in MS, both for the Society, but also the wider community of interest in MS care and treatment.
Aims and objectives of the MS PSP
The aim of the MS PSP is to identify the unanswered questions about MS treatments and other aspects of the condition from patient and clinical perspectives and then prioritise those that patients and clinicians agree are the most important.
The objectives of the MS PSP are to:
- work with patients and clinicians to identify uncertainties about the effects of MS treatments and other aspects of MS
- to agree by consensus a prioritised list of those uncertainties, for research
- to publicise the results of the PSP and process
- to take the results to research commissioning bodies to be considered for funding
Partners
Organisations and individuals will be invited to take part in the PSP, which represent the following groups:
- people who have MS
- carers of people who have MS
- medical doctors, nurses and professionals allied to medicine with clinical experience of MS
It is important that all organisations which can reach and advocate for these groups should be invited to become involved in the PSP. The JLA will take responsibility for ensuring the various stakeholder groups are able to participate equally to the process.
Organisations wishing to participate in the PSP will be required to affiliate to the JLA in order to demonstrate their commitment to the aims and values of the JLA. Please note the affiliation procedure formerly available on the JLA website was discontinued in 2015.
Exclusion criteria
Some organisations may be judged by the JLA or the Steering Group to have conflicts of interest. These may be perceived to adversely affect those organisations’ views, causing unacceptable bias. As this is likely to affect the ultimate findings of the PSP, those organisations will not be invited to participate. It is possible, however, that interested parties may participate in a purely observational capacity when the Steering Group considers it may be helpful.
Methods
This section describes a schedule of proposed stages through which the PSP aims to fulfil its objectives. The process is iterative and dependent on the active participation and contribution of different groups. The methods adopted in any stage will be agreed through consultation between the partners, guided by the PSP’s aims and objectives. More details and examples can be found in the JLA Guidebook.
Identification and invitation of potential partners
Potential partner organisations will be identified through a process of peer knowledge and consultation, through the Steering Group members’ networks and through the JLA’s existing register of affiliates. Potential partners will be contacted and informed of the establishment and aims of the MS PSP and be advised when and how they can participate.
Steering Group
The initial Steering Group meeting will have several key objectives to:
- welcome and introduce potential members of the MS PSP
- present the proposed plan for the PSP
- initiate discussion, answer questions and address concerns
- identify those potential partner organisations which will participate in the PSP and identify individuals who will be those organisations’ representatives and the PSP’s principal contacts
- establish principles upon which an open, inclusive and transparent mechanism can be based for contributing to, reporting and recording the work and progress of the PSP
The administrative process for convening this meeting will be managed by the Steering Group in coordination with the JLA.
Following the first meeting, organisations which have decided to participate in the PSP will be asked to complete a declaration of interests, including disclosing relationships with the pharmaceutical industry.
Identifying treatment uncertainties
Partners will identify how best to encourage uptake of the survey that will gather uncertainties of practical clinical importance relating to the treatment and management of MS. A period of 3 months will be given to complete this exercise.
The methods may be designed according to the nature and membership of each organisation, but must be as transparent, inclusive and representative as practicable. Methods may include membership meetings, email consultation, postal or web-based questionnaires, internet message boards and focus group work.
Existing sources of information about treatment uncertainties for patients and clinicians will be searched. These can include question-answering services for patients and carers and for clinicians; research recommendations in systematic reviews and clinical guidelines; protocols for systematic reviews being prepared and registers of ongoing research.
The starting point for identifying sources of uncertainties and research recommendations is NHS Evidence.
Refining questions and uncertainties
Ann Daly (AD) will lead this work on behalf of the PSP. The JLA can advise on the amount of time likely to be required for its execution. The JLA will participate in this process as an observer, to ensure accountability and transparency.
The consultation process will produce “raw” unanswered questions about:
- Treatment intervention
- Diagnosis
- Prognosis
- Prevention
- Basic research
- Demonstrating benefits
These raw questions will be assembled, categorised and refined by AD into “collated indicative questions” which are clear, addressable by research and understandable to all. Similar or duplicate questions will be combined where appropriate.
The existing literature will be researched by AD to see to what extent these refined questions have, or have not, been answered by previous research.
Sometimes, uncertainties are expressed that can in fact be resolved with reference to existing research evidence - ie they are "unrecognised knowns" and not uncertainties. If a question about treatment effects can be answered with existing information but this is not known, it suggests that information is not being communicated effectively to those who need it. Accordingly, the JLA recommends strongly that PSPs keep a record of these 'answerable questions' and deal with them separately from the 'true uncertainties' considered during the research priority setting process.
Uncertainties which are not adequately addressed by previous research will be collated and entered into the MS section within the UK Database of Uncertainties about the Effects of Treatments (UK DUETs) by AD and Mark Fenton. This will ensure that the uncertainties have been actually checked to be uncertainties. This is the responsibility of the Steering Group, which will need to have agreed personnel and resources to carry this accountability. This is a key component of the JLA process, and the next stage of prioritisation can only proceed upon its completion. (Please note the UK DUETs database was discontinued in 2015. All PSP uncertainties now appear on the JLA website).
Prioritisation – interim and final stages
The aim of the final stage of the priority setting process is to prioritise through consensus the identified uncertainties relating to the treatment or management of MS. This will be carried out by members of the Steering Group and the wider partnership that represents patients and clinicians.
The interim stage, to proceed from a long list of uncertainties to a shorter list (e.g. up to 30), may be carried out over email, whereby organisations consult their membership and ask for a top 10 most important uncertainties, ranked or unranked.
The final stage, to reach 10 prioritised uncertainties, is likely to be conducted in a face-to-face meeting, using group discussions and plenary sessions. The Steering Group will need to decide if it wants to segment the process to produce a top ten for the 6 areas under scope.
The methods used for this prioritisation process will be determined by consultation with the partner organisations and with the advice of the JLA. Methods which have been identified as potentially useful in this process include: adapted Delphi techniques; expert panels or nominal group techniques; consensus development conference; electronic nominal group and online voting; interactive research agenda setting and focus groups.
The JLA will facilitate this process and ensure transparency, accountability and fairness.
Timescales
Ideally the MS Society would like to be able to use their research conference in early May to share the results of this exercise, this makes for an ambitious timeline:
- Initial stakeholder meeting – July 2012
- Gather treatment uncertainties – Oct – Dec 2012
- Refine them, and check for uncertainty - Jan 2013
- Publish them on UK DUETs Feb – March 2013
- Prioritise them – Interim March 2013 - Final April 2013
- Publish results – Research conference May 13
Findings and research
It is anticipated that the findings of the MS PSP will be reported to funding and research agenda setting organisations such as the NIHR HTA Programme and the MRC, as well as the major research funding charities, as well as the MS Society. Steering Group members and partners are encouraged to develop the prioritised uncertainties into research questions, and to work to establish the research needs of those unanswered questions to use when approaching potential funders, or when allocating funding for research themselves, if applicable.
Publicity
As well as alerting funders, partners and Steering Group members are encouraged to publish the findings of the MS PSP using both internal and external communication mechanisms. The JLA may also capture and publicise the results, through descriptive reports of the process itself. This exercise will be distinct from the production of an academic paper, which the partners are also encouraged to do. However, production of an academic paper should not take precedence over publicising of the final results.
Signed by the Steering Group
- The undersigned agree to follow the MS Priority Setting Protocol.
- MS Society (Members and staff)
- UK MS Specialist Nurses Association
- UK MS National Therapy Centres
- Association of British Neurologists
- Richard Warner Specialist MS Nurse
- The James Lind Alliance