10.I. Skills building seminar: A seat at the table: Engaging patients and citizens in public health policy-making

Patient and citizen engagement is an essential element of effective healthcare delivery and policy-making, leading towards patient-centred care and improving health outcomes. An important shift is taking place from paternalistic and deficit models towards a more participatory approach. Notably, patients provide valuable input on the ethics, acceptability, trustworthiness and effectiveness of policy initiatives based on their preferences, values and experiences. This is particularly relevant in the area of cancer prevention and treatment, where patient and citizen involvement plays an important part in the European Beating Cancer Plan (EBCP) and EU4Health programme. Cancer care is a societal challenge that raises many issues such as reimbursement of and timely access to prevention, diagnosis and treatment, the use of genomic data, behaviour modification, surveillance, data protection, the integration of therapeutics and research. This challenge is relevant for the population as a whole as everyone is vulnerable to the disease and everyone is impacted by screening, immunization, and preventative initiatives. As such, there is a need for a long-term plan to systematically and actively involve patients and citizens in policy and decision-making. The Belgian Cancer Centre of Sciensano is organising a workshop to improve patient and citizen engagement in policy-making. In this emerging field, no clear quality standards, accepted methods or even recommendations for when to involve certain publics on what topics exist. This workshop will offer an overview of the current state of play and provide practical tools and recommendations for future implementation. During the workshop, participants will learn about the theoretical background, practical implications and potential benefits of public engagement. The workshop will focus on three types of engagement (large scale, targeted and structural), offer concrete examples and discuss risks and benefits of different methodological approaches. In the second part of the workshop, a hypothetical citizen engagement project about the implementation of risk-stratified cancer prevention will be designed, using a co-creative approach involving all participants. The participants will be guided through the process of formulating appropriate questions, setting up a suitable design and preparing implementation of outcomes. KEY MESSAGES: • Engagement of patients and citizens is a crucial component of efficient healthcare delivery and policy development. • The booming field of patient and citizen engagement offers a lot of different methods and strategies. It is important to use the appropriate tool in all circumstances. SPEAKERS/PANELISTS: Wannes Van Hoof Sciensano, Brussels, Belgium Louise Mathieu Sciensano, Brussels, Belgium