Table 1.

Planned and actual public involvement in our study

Involvement plan	Change	Variation or addition
Study management and delivery
2 public contributors at the research management group—strategic and operational responsibility over study	No change	Undertaken in line with plan
2 public contributors at four subgroups: data collection; review findings; plan stakeholder events; and dissemination	Change	Six subgroups convened and included public members. Additional groups: manage rapid realist review; review interview data
Support 7 patient and public members at two stakeholdera events	Change	Additional roles undertaken by public contributors: recruiting 15 public members; co‐planning the agenda and room layout to address public needs; facilitating discussion groups; and co‐presenting
Dissemination—2 public contributors lead public strand	Change	Dissemination activities extended across all aspects of the study and included:
		• Oral and written presentations of public involvement in study • Co‐authors of research papers • Comments on reports to funders • Presentations to stakeholdersa • Inputting patient perspective to dissemination strategy • Preparing lay summaries of all research outputs
Study oversight and advice
2 public contributors at the Study Steering Committee	No change	Undertaken in line with plan
Additional public input
7 public members (excluding study public contributors) at two stakeholdera events	Change	15 public members attended the 2‐day‐long stakeholder* events; 6 attended the first; 10 attended the second; and 1 of these people attended both. These individuals shared patient stories to explain patient priorities and decision‐making processes when seeking emergency health care
Public involvement processes and effects
Named academic lead for public involvement to support public members	No change	Undertaken in line with plan
	New	Public Involvement Team meetings to plan, review and operationalize public involvement throughout the study (2 public contributors and 1 public involvement lead)
	New	2 public contributors conducted audit of public involvement in the study and amended processes in light of results
	New	2 public contributors collected data on processes and effects of public involvement in the study and reported these
Total planned number of public individuals involved		Total actual number of public individuals involved
11		19

^aStakeholders at these events included public and patient members, health service managers, clinicians, policy makers and researchers.