New JLA Priority Setting Partnership to prioritise future research in contraception

A new Contraception Priority Setting Partnership (PSP) has begun its process to create – by democratic consultation - a Top 10 priority list of research uncertainties, put together by patients, their partners and clinicians.

The PSP hopes that this Top 10 will help guide researchers in answering questions that are equally important to all people affected by contraceptive care. It is an invaluable opportunity to work collaboratively with patients and clinicians to set pertinent research priorities which otherwise might have been overlooked by researchers themselves or the pharmaceutical industry.

Alex Filby is from the Women’s Network, Royal College of Gynaecologists and Obstetricians, one of the organisations representing patients on the Steering Group of the PSP. Alex said: "Patients have a key role to play in determining research priorities - their grounded viewpoint keeps research focussed on helping patients, rather than becoming pure academia". 

Led by the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare, this PSP also presents an ideal opportunity to raise the profile of contraceptive care across the UK and sexual and reproductive health as a medical specialty. Professor Judith Stephenson, who initiated the PSP, said: "Since contraception affects nearly all women, a more systematic approach to discovering what contraceptive research women would like us to do on their behalf seemed long overdue". 

A key part of the process will be asking patients, their partners and healthcare professionals to submit the questions around contraception that they just haven’t been able to find an answer to.