Patient and public involvement (PPI) in research has become expected practice by funders and Research Ethics Committees. (1-3) Working with the public contributors from the outset in designing and undertaking patient-related research helps ensure that the focus is relevant to and grounded in their lived experiences. (4) Despite sustained UK research policy advocating the importance of PPI, (3) public contributions are often absent or minimal in reports of primary care research. (5) In this patient perspectives edition of BJGP only two papers report on public contributions to the design and execution of the research.