The North East Ambulance Service (NEAS) serves a population of 2.7 million people across Northumberland, Tyne & Wear, County Durham, Darlington, and Tees Valley. To ensure that their services are fit for purpose now, and in the future, NEAS wanted to refresh its clinical strategy. Input from patients and the public was essential and NEAS approached the North East and North Cumbria VCSE Partnership Programme led by VONNE (Voluntary Organisations’ Network North East) to gather feedback. In turn, VONNE approached Healthwatch to support the project.
This approach to engagement marked a change for NEAS, looking outside of their organisation to gather views of patients and the public. It also represented a new collaborative partnership approach between VONNE and Healthwatch and a fresh opportunity for the VCSE Partnership Programme members to get involved in research activities and shape services. With this in mind, it was suggested that an evaluation of the approach be conducted, to reflect on its successes and capture any lessons learned, with the hopes of generating further partnership working in the future.
We carried out interviews with a range of stakeholders exploring:
• Understanding their organisation’s approach to the engagement.
• Their role in the project.
• Positives and negatives of the approach.
Read the report here.
