The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has released a new Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement Plan covering the period from 2026 to 2030. The document outlines how the regulator intends to involve patients earlier in the decision-making process and to be transparent about how lived experiences shape its work.
Patients’ lived experience will feed into a range of regulatory activities, including the assessment of a medicine’s benefits and risks, safety reviews, and the formation of policy. The plan also aligns with the MHRA’s Strategy to 2030 and expands on the earlier Patient Involvement Strategy that ran from 2021 to 2025.
To demonstrate impact, the agency will strengthen feedback mechanisms, improve monitoring, and publish reports that show how contributions have altered its actions. It will also broaden the membership of its Patient and Public Community so that the group better mirrors the ethnic, geographic and age diversity of the United Kingdom.
Deliberative engagement methods will be used to guarantee that patient and public viewpoints shape how benefits and risks are weighed. This structured dialogue will also involve people in projects aimed at making medicines information clearer and more accessible to everyday users.
Collaboration with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is part of the plan, with the goal of cutting duplicate efforts when patient-involvement evidence is used for both regulatory decisions and health-technology assessments.
Professor Anthony Harnden, Chair of the MHRA, said: “Our Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement Plan is a vital evolution in the way we connect and listen to patients and the public.”
He added that patients and the public can provide insight into how treatments affect daily life, which benefits matter most to them, and where information still needs to be clearer.
Mercy Jeyasingham MBE, MHRA Non-Executive Director and Chair of the People and Public Engagement Committee, explained that the plan blends ambition with practical, achievable commitments to strengthen how patients and the public are involved in regulatory work.
The People and Public Engagement Committee will oversee progress, turning the stated commitments into lasting improvements and ensuring that the new approach is embedded across the regulator’s activities.