Resources

Lily is 15. She explains why she has decided to get involved in health and social care research.

“I have been involved with the Young Peoples Advisory Group (YPAG) for around 18 months now. As part of YPAG, I am able to take part in many projects to help shape the future of healthcare for young people; such as Junior Doctor training days and mental health care in young people.

“Recently, I have had the opportunity to take part in a project with Dr Emma Lim on pill swallowing.

“During this project, along with a group of other young people, we worked with Dr Emma to tackle and re-assess the problem of under 18s struggling to swallow medicine in tablet form.

“To do this, we worked alongside doctors and nurses to reappropriate the resources given to young people. We also created a course which allowed pill swallowing to be practised at home with similar things such as hard sweets.

“As part of this project, I personally, took part in recruiting other young people to take part in our surveys as part of research. I also was able to adapt and change parts of the course to make it more suited to my age range, which was a hugely impactful and useful experience for me as it gave me the opportunity to have my own opinions heard.”