Results from a YouGov survey commissioned by NHS England, point to the East Midlands Academic Health Science Network (EMAHSN) as an accessible and responsive organisation that is working collaboratively and is striving to identify and spread innovation at pace and scale.

The surveys of all 15 Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs) nationally, provided an opportunity for respondents from health, social care, higher education, local government, industry and the third sector, to feed back on their relationship with their local AHSN.

Participants were invited to comment on issues focused around the impact being made by the AHSNs, and the results will be used to understand progress, identify areas for development and good practice that can be shared between the organisations. Results from the East Midlands survey respondents include:

• 85% said EMAHSN has clear and visible leadership

• 77% said EMAHSN is accessible, 74% said it is responsive, 74% said it provides quality advice and 72% said it is knowledgeable about the local health landscape

• Around three quarters of respondents said EMAHSN is committed to building a culture of collaboration and 79% would recommend working alongside the organisation

The results also provide valuable feedback about areas for future focus. These include:

• Ensuring EMAHSN’s priorities are clearly aligned to local health priorities

• Strengthening links with commissioning organisations

EMAHSN Managing Director Rachel Munton said: “This feedback provides a rich, detailed and extremely useful source of information which we will be using over the coming weeks and months to understand how we can best add value and to help ensure we remain on track to deliver our organisational goals - and meet the needs of our many partners across the East Midlands’ health, social care, higher education, industry, local government and voluntary sectors.

“For a relatively new organisation the results are extremely encouraging and the feedback is that we are an accessible and responsive organisation that is working collaboratively and is striving to identify and spread innovation at pace and scale.

“There are also some clear areas where we need to continue to focus our attention and with this in mind I am delighted that NHS England has confirmed its commitment to run the survey again in 2016 – this means we now have a strong benchmark to judge our future progress.”

EMAHSN survey report results can be viewed in full here.

A summary of results from all 15 AHSN surveys can be viewed here.