Janssen Patient Advisory Commitee

Between 2019 and 2022 I was a member of Janssen UKs patient advisory committee. This was a new and innovative initiative formed based on the feedback of the Patient Centricity audit carried out in late 2016 which said that having patients more involved in Janssen’s governance would enable them to be more patient centric in their actions.

The committee met on a quarterly basis to discuss topics and questions which posed by the Management Committee and other senior leaders, enabling Janssen to have the patient perspective on key topics. 

As a committee, we were also able to raise topics which we felt were pressing and should be discussed.

During the pilot phase, I had the additional role of acting as a mentor to the Managing Director and Senior Director of Health Economics, Market Access, Reimbursement & Advocacy, offering advice and recommendations on projects which had a direct impact on patients, in order to improve the delivery and outcomes for those projects. 

As part of my role as lead for Medical Education, Research and Development, I ran workshops and spoke at a senior leadership EMEA meeting about patient engagement and involvement. I also spoke and ran a workshop at Janssen UKs annual internal conference.

The committee selection process included a review of applications and face-to-face meetings with senior leaders from Janssen to learn about the experiences and skills each individual could bring to the roles, and recipients were chosen based on their ability to speak about the patient experience and communicate the needs and opinions of patients, either from personal lived experience or by working for a Patient Advocacy Group.