You will by now have a clear idea of the people you need to hear from and what you want them to influence. The next stage is finding them, for more information see Who can help you?
The recruitment process takes time, on average two to three months from the planning stage to having a fully recruited group. The person co-ordinating recruitment can find that it takes over most of the working week for that time. The impact on that person can be reduced if you share the tasks among members of a delivery group.
Even though we thought we were OK at doing user involvement we still underestimated the time it takes to establish a group to the level that we now do. You would [be] looking at almost a full time person for four weeks to set it up and then doing at least two full days a week on this.
Carol Cottingham, NHS Lincolnshire Head of Long Team Conditions
Peter Gilbert (NHS Hammersmith and Fulham diabetes user group) gives some advice on involving service users: