Home / Collaboration & Implementation Literacy
Stakeholder and Responsibility Mapping
Mapping affected people and decision responsibilities helps prevent important perspectives and duties from being overlooked.
#Include people affected by the change
NHS Education for Scotland defines stakeholders as people or organisations with an interest in an improvement or affected by its changes. Its method begins by identifying them and then understanding their perspectives. NHS improvement guidance places involvement at the early scope-setting stage and continues it through later stages.
Look beyond the project's sponsors to the people using, receiving or supporting the service. An organisation's name may not identify the person who needs to participate. This page explains general mapping methods, not an actual Mynd stakeholder list or a confirmed partnership.
Evidence: NHS Education for Scotland: stakeholder analysis / NHS improvement tools: stakeholder involvement
#Do not confuse influence with responsibility
The NHS interest-and-influence grid helps plan involvement and communication. It also discusses increasing service users' influence. AHRQ's workflow method answers a different question: which role completes each task? TeamSTEPPS handoff guidance adds how a transfer of care responsibility is acknowledged.
Keep these distinctions visible. High influence does not itself establish authority to approve a clinical change or grant access to data. A communication map cannot replace local decisions about who is authorised to act. The methods support questions about responsibility; they do not assign professional duties on this site.
Evidence: NHS Education for Scotland: stakeholder analysis / AHRQ: flowchart method and limits / AHRQ TeamSTEPPS (2023): handoff
#Review involvement as the work changes
NHS guidance calls for reviewing the stakeholder analysis and communication plan as more people become affected. The updated CFIR distinguishes roles from characteristics such as capability, opportunity and motivation, rather than treating a role title as a full explanation of participation.
Revisit who is missing, what each person needs to understand and where responsibilities remain disputed. A map is a working record, not proof that everyone has agreed. This is general improvement literacy; Mynd does not claim a staffed governance process, a completed engagement exercise or a clinical review here.
Evidence: NHS Education for Scotland: stakeholder analysis / Implementation Science (2022): updated CFIR
Source note
The sections above were checked against the linked sources. No clinical review has been performed. This is general research education, not a clinical guideline.