A Qualitative Exploration of Stakeholder Involvement in Decision-Making for Alcohol Treatment and Prevention Services

The concept of providing individuals with a ‘voice’ via stakeholder involvement has been advocated within English health care policy for several decades. Stakeholder involvement encourages people affected by an issue to contribute to planning and decision making regarding treatment and care, inclusive of providers and recipients of care. This paper explores stakeholder involvement in the design and delivery of public health alcohol services. A qualitative case study approach was adopted, including in-depth interviews with 11 alcohol commissioners, 10 alcohol service providers and 6 general practitioners plus three facilitated focus groups with 31 alcohol service users. Findings show that most participants were aware of, and could name, various methods of stakeholder involvement that they had engaged with; however, the extent and impact of stakeholder involvement in decision making are not transparent. It is essential that a deeper understanding is generated of the different roles that stakeholders can play within the entire decision-making process to maximise its utility.