Participatory development of innovation and implementation strategy - a practical approach

Background: Healthcare and academic institutions face growing challenges in strategic planning due to rapid advances in medicine and technology, alongside fiscal and workforce constraints that limit traditional consultation. Participatory approaches offer a way to integrate diverse stakeholder perspectives under these constraints, generating contextually relevant strategies that can indicate whether current directions are appropriate or whether priorities have been overlooked. Methods: A structured participatory workshop was conducted at the 10th Grampian Research Conference (June 2025). One hundred seventy-eight participants including National Health Service (NHS) staff, academics, industry partners, patients, and public contributors, engaged in 14 parallel roundtable discussions. Contributions were captured using posters and Post-it notes, collecting 148 written annotations. Data were analysed using thematic and content analysis, supplemented by strategic frameworks including Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT/TOWS), and Easy Wins, to identify and prioritise actionable strategies. Results: Five core themes emerged: (1) access to healthcare and services, (2) patient and public involvement and engagement, (3) digital health and service delivery innovation, (4) data access, integration, and governance, and (5) workforce development and culture. SWOT analysis identified strengths in telemedicine, interdisciplinary student training, and patient and public involvement, alongside weaknesses in fragmented data, referral tracking, and workforce pressures. TOWS matrix produced strategy-oriented recommendations such as AI-enabled scheduling, remote monitoring, and transparent referral systems. Easy Wins framework assessment highlighted immediate, low-cost improvements including identifiable NHS caller identification, automated text message reminders, updated informational videos and multilingual materials. Conclusion: By combining participatory outputs with structured strategy tools, this approach demonstrated a resource-efficient model for adaptive planning. The findings align with and extend current national health policy frameworks, offering a replicable approach for institutions aiming to obtain meaningful stakeholder engagement despite fiscal and temporal constraints.