The Challenge

East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust (EEAST) operates three Emergency Operations Centres (EOCs) supporting a large and diverse population. The Trust was experiencing sustained recruitment and retention challenges, high sickness absence and growing workforce pressures within a competitive labour market.

Alongside this, EEAST was progressing a strategic decision on the future location of their EOCs. The Trust required robust, evidence-based workforce insight to support decision-making, provide assurance to stakeholders and inform future workforce planning.

The Approach

MIAA delivered a comprehensive recruitment market assessment and workforce sustainability review across the three EOC locations. Our approach combined:

• Detailed workforce data analysis, including turnover, sickness, length of service and recruitment trends

• Labour market intelligence, drawing on ONS and regional data to assess current and future workforce supply

• Stakeholder engagement, including structured interviews with operational leaders, workforce teams and managers

• Comparative site analysis, using a transparent scorecard to assess long-term workforce sustainability

• Options appraisal, linking workforce risk, labour market conditions and operational resilience
• The work was delivered at pace, with clear milestones, regular engagement and validation with the Trust throughout.

The Outcomes

MIAA brought deep NHS workforce expertise and an understanding of the operational realities of emergency services. By combining robust data analysis with lived experience from stakeholders, we provided EEAST with clarity, confidence and a credible evidence base to support a significant strategic change. This provided EEAST with clear, evidence-based assurance to support its EOC estate strategy.

Key outputs included

• A site-specific recruitment market assessment for Bedford, Chelmsford and Norwich

• A workforce sustainability scorecard to support transparent comparison and assurance

• Identification of key workforce risks, including unplanned attrition and recruitment bottlenecks

• Clear mitigation actions to support workforce transition and resilience

• Board-ready reporting to support strategic decision-making and internal assurance

MIAA’s support strengthened the leadership understanding of labour market dynamics and future workforce sustainability and delivered a practical, actionable report aligned to operational realities and national policy expectations.

The review enabled informed decision-making through a balanced assessment of workforce risk and opportunity and supported the Trust to plan proactively for recruitment, retention and workforce transition.

For more information about our services contact Andy Maloney, Director of Delivery - Workforce.