© FoNS 2013 Internatonal Practce Development Journal 3 (2) [3] htp://www.fons.org/library/journal.aspx 1 ORIGINAL PRACTICE DEVELOPMENT AND RESEARCH PAPER A stroke staf training programme involving expert patents: a case study of its impact on staf and service development Jennifer Read* and Rebecca Palmer *Corresponding author: University of Shefeld, UK Email: J.read@shefeld.ac.uk Submited for publicaton: 15 th January 2013 Accepted for publicaton: 4 th July 2013 Abstract Aim: To explore the long term impact of an interprofessional staf training course involving expert patents addressing the psychological, communicaton and cognitve needs of stroke patents. Methods: Thematc framework analysis of focus group and interview transcripts from a convenience sample of course partcipants, which identfed key overarching analytcal themes. Findings: Partcipants discussed the impact of the course on their understanding and awareness of, and empathy with, patents and their needs, up to six years afer course atendance. Involvement of expert patents was key to this. However, despite their perceived development of awareness and skills, partcipants felt team and systemic barriers obstructed practce change. Conclusions: A long term qualitatve service evaluaton of a staf training course involving expert patents helped staf to develop a holistc outlook, improving their understanding of patents with psychological, communicaton and cognitve problems, and awareness of their needs. However, training alone was perceived to be insufcient to achieve the practce change required to improve patent care. Implicatons for practce: • Involving expert patients in staff training could improve staff’s awareness and understanding of patients and their needs • Actively involving expert patients in staff training could bring positive changes to workplace culture and person-centred practice • Multidisciplinary, practical, workbased, reflective courses with quality manuals and workbooks are valued by staff • Training alone is not sufficient to ensure practice change or implementation of newly acquired skills, even if staff are highly motivated. Systemic and team barriers need to be addressed • Long term qualitative and quantitative evaluation of staff training courses involving expert patients should be undertaken to provide in depth and measurable outcomes of training Keywords: Patent public involvement, expert patents, staf training, service evaluaton, staf development, barriers to change Introduction Patent involvement in training and development is well established within undergraduate educaton, health research and service design and provision (Department of Health, 1999a; Boote et al., 2002; Department of Health, 2004; Baggot, 2005; Towle et al., 2010). However, despite recogniton that