Colin Thomson

What I do as a member of the IP Advisory Group:

Vice Chair of the group and I am involved with both TRUST and WERN, two research groups who are involved with unscheduled care and epilepsy. I sit on the group as a public/patient representative and try to push patient involvement in research, which I sincerely believe is indispensable.

When and why I joined Involving People:

In 2007, Prof. Helen Snooks of Swansea University, a colleague of mine on the Ambulance Research and Development group, spoke with me about Involving People and she thought with my experience of involvement in research I would be a useful member of the group.

What I did before Involving People:

Public/patient representative for Wales on the National Joint Research Group, set up by the Department of Health to supervise hip and Knee replacements, and to ensure all operations within the UK were recorded on a database.

Public/patient representative on the All Wales Ambulance Research and Development group, one major aspect of the research has been to establish that 50% of cases who attend Accident and Emergency departments should be treated elsewhere.

A life time’s involvement with the NHS, having worked as a senior nurse, and finally working for Unison, representing health workers throughout Wales.

What I want to do, but haven’t done yet:

Continuously working to ensure that patients are people like ourselves and should be treated with respect and dignity. Unfortunately, I still come across instances where the patient’s views are regularly ignored, or are treated as if they know nothing.

Favourite famous quotation:

"Your operation was a great success".
Thomas Hollier, the surgeon who treated Samuel Pepys for the removal of a bladder stone. Unfortunately, he was left with incontinence, and he was made impotent, with subsequent breakdowns of the operation site. Nevertheless he subsequently celebrated seven anniversaries of the operation for having survived.