London Ambulance Service NHS Trust

In 2021, the London Ambulance Service NHS Trust reached an urgent inflection point: it had the second-lowest staff survey results in the ambulance sector, high colleague turnover (12 per cent) and elevated sickness levels (8 per cent). Morale was at a critical low, with more than 42 per cent of staff considering leaving the organisation – a situation that was beginning to erode the quality of care the service prides itself on delivering across London.

In response, the service launched an ambitious, organisation-wide engagement programme – ‘Our LAS’ – to ensure every colleague could help shape the organisation’s future, and in 2022 this culminated in a series of more than 2,000 co-creative workshops where colleagues helped define organisational values, explore what a good day at work looks like for them and empower leaders through meaningful development and appraisal practices. These workshops also surfaced deeper cultural concerns around harassment and discrimination, which led to the creation of LAS’s Sexual Safety Charter.

As part of Our LAS, trust-wide career pathways informed by workforce data were developed, and a Careers Advisory Service was launched. Furthermore, externally delivered leadership programmes for more than 330 colleagues were rolled out, as well as a new e-appraisal system and a comprehensive Learning and Education Course Catalogue, offering a central hub for all internal training opportunities and funding guidance. 

Since being implemented,the programme has delivered improvements across sickness and retention and led to the most improved staff survey results in LAS’s history. In 2023, 90 of the 97 questions in the staff survey saw an improvement, with the most improved scores relating to team effectiveness (28 per cent increase), sufficient staffing levels (11 per cent rise) and ability to access learning and development opportunities (10 per cent increase). These improvements were replicated in the 2024 staff survey results, coupled with a drop in overall turnover (7 per cent in June 2024) and sickness levels (7 per cent in June 2024).

The team was recognised as Team of the Year at the Healthcare People Management Association national awards, with LAS’s chief people officer being named People Leader of the Year. The PMAs judges were impressed by the initiative’s “outstanding impact on operational outcomes and the incredibly important and effective work the entrants have been doing in such an important sector”.