Background

As part of their strategy development, the North East Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (NEAS) initiated the work necessary to devise a new strategy for a 10-year period. This comes at a time of key changes for the NHS, through the new 10-year plan and its three shifts, from treatment to prevention, from hospitals to communities and from analogue to digital. Underpinning the strategy with the views of patients, staff and stakeholders was a key priority for NEAS, ensuring the final strategy reflected the needs and expectations of those they serve and work with. As part of this, NEAS developed a comprehensive engagement plan to inform the strategy development.

NEAS set out to engage with three groups, namely their patients, their staff and their wider stakeholders and system partners. Patient research was delivered by Vonne and staff engagement by Work Networks. Explain Research was commissioned to engage with senior leaders within regional system partners to meet three objectives:

-          understand stakeholder perceptions of NEAS as an organisation,

-          explore stakeholder experiences of working with NEAS

-          understand stakeholder expectations of NEAS’s role within the wider health system.

Explain was also commissioned to triangulate the research findings from all three strands of engagement.

Methodology

The stakeholder research ran from November 2025 to April 2026 and was qualitative to reach a depth of insights that would inform NEAS’s strategy in a meaningful way. In total, 26 senior stakeholders were involved in the research through online in-depths interviews lasting between 30 and 60 minutes. A short survey was also distributed via a stakeholder newsletter to gather additional feedback from stakeholders who might otherwise not have had a chance to give their views on the research. Stakeholders worked in a wide range of organisations, from health and care partners to governmental and third-sector organisations.

Every interview was conducted by a trained researcher at Explain and every response was analysed in house. The qualitative analysis combined careful review of interview transcripts and survey feedback with thematic coding to identify recurring patterns, points of difference and strategic implications of the data. The triangulation was conducted to highlight points of convergence and divergence across stakeholder groups, ensuring that the weight of each voice was considered. All analysis was carried out by an Explain researcher rather than by AI, ensuring that findings were grounded in professional judgement and sensitivity to nuance and context. Given the nature of the work, some of the feedback included complex clinical and technical insights. Explain’s extensive knowledge of and experience in the health sector was key to ensuring accurate analysis and reporting of these insights.

Outcomes

The final reports presented the analysis of findings from stakeholder engagement research and the triangulated findings of all three groups (patients, staff and stakeholders) to meet the needs of the NEAS team. The strengths and perceived areas of improvement for the organisation were highlighted, as well as key expectations from stakeholders in the context of the NHS 10-year plan to directly inform NEAS’s strategy. This ultimately resulted in seven actionable strategic implications and priorities being identified from the findings across research strands.

This research was intrinsically collaborative and reflected both NEAS and Explain’s ethos of partnership working, from mapping stakeholders, identifying and filling gaps in the research, triangulating the research strands, presenting strategic insights to the team and NEAS’s board to shaping the direction of the strategy as it was developed.

Explain Research have since assumed a critical friend and trusted research partner role with the NEAS team to ensure that the developing strategy is true to the requirements of staff, patients and stakeholders evidenced within the research. We will continue to bring objectivity to ensure that the strategy serves as a clear, actionable plan that will drive NEAS to continued strengths.

The final engagement and triangulation reports and debrief were key documents used in the development of NEAS’s strategy.

Client testimonial

“The strong partnership between NEAS and Explain meant that that the project was very much seen as a collaborative effort. Throughout the process Explain colleagues were professional, responsive and tenacious. The insight that we were able to gain has been instrumental in shaping our strategy and informing the development of our operational plans”