The “FORensic oUtcome Measure” or FORUM is the name of the instrument. It is used to measure outcomes in forensic mental health services with the aim to safeguard patients and the public, monitor progress, inform treatment plans and assist in service evaluation and planning.
The FORUM is designed for all forensic mental health services including low, medium and high secure healthcare institutions, and specialised community forensic teams.
The FORUM was not designed for use in people who use forensic mental health services with an intellectual disability, however versions optimised for this population may be available in the future.
The FORUM is not designed for use in people with mental illness in prison.
Yes. Although the FORUM was developed and optimised for services in the UK we believe it would be relevant for use in many other mental health services outside of the UK.
Yes. We require you to aquire a licence to use the FORUM in order for us to ensure appropriate use of the instrument and for reporting purposes. This also ensures that you recieve the latest information and materials.
The FORUM is free of charge for healthcare providers, publicly funded organisations and use within academic studies.
In order for us to grant permissions (a copyright licence) for the use the FORUM, we require certain information from you and/or your organisation. We therefore ask that you complete the online licence request with Oxford University Innovation, so we can then make an informed decision about granting (or not) your organisation a licence. You can request a licence here: Home (ox.ac.uk)
The information you provide will be relied on and used by the licensing team for any licence agreement that may subsequently be issued to you. Please therefore ensure that it is complete and accurate. The information will be received and held in confidence and used by us solely for the purposes of the prospective licence agreement and interactions with you. Oxford University Innovation’s privacy notice can be accessed through the footer of the Oxford University Innovation website.
On submitting your licence request you will receive an automated response confirming that your request has been received. A member of the clinical outcomes team will endeavour to respond to your application within 1 working day. If a request is urgent then please do let us know and we will endeavour to respond as soon as we receive the completed licence request submission.
The Clinical Outcomes team is part of the Licensing a Ventures team within the Technology Transfer group within Oxford University Innovation (the Licensor), the Technology Transfer Company for the University of Oxford.
They work with academic authors and others to licence the copyrighted material they produced. With the academic authors’ support, Oxford University Innovation formally acquires rights in the outcome measures from the University of Oxford.
Therefore, as Oxford University Innovation is the copyright owner or licensor of the outcome measure, the licence you enter into is with Oxford University Innovation. It is not sufficient to get the permissions (written or otherwise) of the authors before using one of our measures.
Yes, you must acquire rights (a copyright licence) or permissions to use the FORUM, whether it is for commercial or academic research purposes. The FORUM is protected by copyright and is available for licensing from Oxford University Innovation Ltd. If your use involves reproducing the outcome assessment in a research paper then you should still seek written permissions.
You will first need to seek permissions from the licensing team at Oxford University Innovation as part of acquiring a licence. When suitable licensees can provide evidence they can meet our requirements when developing such web-based/mobile application versions of the FORUM. Under such circumstances we support the development of electronic (eCOA or ePRO) versions of our measures
These two requirements are:-
Protecting integrity to ensure a faithful migration.
Regulation of use of copyright
So, for organisations that can accommodate the above, and also have an appreciation of ensuring the electronic version they create is able to deliver equivalent results to the original paper version, then we welcome your approach.
To check whether a translation is available, please request a licence via Oxford University Innovation to see if this is available or in the pipeline. If you require a language that is not available, then we will support you in obtaining the required translation. Oxford University Innovation’s standard licence does permit licensees to translate the PRO, subject to that translation following their own Translation and Linguistic Validation Methodology. Any translations undertaken by licensees must follow their methodology which uses industry best-practice in line with ISPOR’s Good Outcomes Research Practices. In this way, we can continue to provide outcome measures of the highest quality.
Any translations generated in connection with the licensee’s permitted use of the FORUM shall be the property of Oxford University Innovation Limited and formal assignment of rights will be required.
If you have not previously worked with translation companies and you would like to commission a translation of an outcome measure from us (or elsewhere), the team at Oxford University Innovation will manage this process for you. They work with industry-leading providers of outcome measure translation and linguistic validation services, to ensure that the integrity of the instrument is maintained following translation of the measure.
In general the outcome measure may not be modified. The FORUM is protected by copyright. Any change made without the prior written consent of the team at Oxford University Innovation is a breach of copyright.
Also, modifying the FORUM (for example by changing, deleting, or adding items) can damage the validity of the instrument so any results obtained using the modified measure may not be reliable or statistically relevant.