Keeping a finger on the pulse of the NHS

“The NHS belongs to the people” are the opening words of the NHS Constitution, which sets out the principles and values of the NHS.

Nye Bevan, the Minister of Health known as the architect of the NHS, ensured that engagement with people was firmly at the heart of his transformation of the welfare state 77 years ago.

He went to great lengths to explain how he had consulted with a vast range of representatives of citizens to ensure that his proposition of a health service, free at the point of access, was the right thing to create for a population with increasing health inequalities.

Today, with a growing, ageing and more diverse population than ever before, the need for effective communications and engagement remains just as important.

Skilled communications and engagement teams are part of the fabric of the modern day NHS and play a unique role in bridging the gap between the organisation and the patient.

From translating complex policy into understandable language, to acting as the ‘organisational conscience’ to support decision-making, to delivering impactful behaviour change campaigns built on robust engagement, their vital role is often underappreciated and overlooked.

They also perform the key role of listening, which Bevan was so keen to stress in the NHS’s formative years, and are experts at creating dialogue with those who matter most.

Below are three important ways communications and engagement professionals can support an NHS for future generations:

1. Building effective relationships with stakeholders

Professor Shannon Bowen, who has written extensively on the power of public relations on organisations, says that a high-performing organisation should have comprehensive relationships with the public, stakeholders and communities and that “good working relationships is the definition of organisational effectiveness.”

Applying her theory to the NHS, failure to have strong relationships with stakeholders  risks undermining the purpose of an NHS organisation – to provide high-quality care for all.

As specialists in understanding the multitude of internal and external factors that can influence an NHS organisation, communications and engagement teams frequently build and maintain effective relationships with an array of stakeholders.

Leading communications and engagement experts Anne Gregory and Paul Willis describe such professionals as being able to take a ‘helicopter view’ of intelligence-gathering to understand perceptions and attitudes which can affect an organisation’s policy making, risk awareness and reputation.

Whether it’s delivering roundtables with the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise sector, or providing accurate and timely information for MPs and local councillors, or supporting joint programmes across the health and social care ecosystem, such professionals are crucial in understanding the dynamics of relationships between those with interests and concerns and the NHS organisation they represent.

2. Creating dialogue with patients to improve healthcare services

The most recent Patient and Public Participation Policy, published by NHS England, sets out the ambition for the health service to listen and create dialogue with people to “understand diverse health needs better, and focus on and respond to what matters to them.” The policy affirms that, through a process of dialogue, “people can influence priorities and decision-making, and can hold the organisation to account.”

However, many organisations are failing to listen to people in a credible way. Research by The Organizational Listening Project, launched by Professor Jim Macnamara who is one of the leading authorities on public communications, examined 36 non-government organisations across the world, including NHS England, and concluded that they listen “sporadically at best, often poorly, and sometimes not at all.”

Macnamara offers his Architecture of Listening framework as a way for organisations to improve how they listen to people and create effective dialogue to support decision-making. His ‘seven canons’ comprises of methods including: recognition, acknowledgement, attention, interpretation, understanding, consideration, and response.

Communications and engagement teams in the NHS already have the core skills to implement these techniques. They regularly create two-way dialogue with people, helping to ensure equity in service delivery by listening to as many voices as possible.

3. Breaking trust barriers through community engagement

The British Social Attitudes survey shows that public dissatisfaction levels with the NHS are at their lowest since measurements began in 1983, with just 1 in 5 people satisfied with the NHS, meaning the rebuilding of trust between the public and the NHS is a priority.

The highly-respected Edelman Trust Barometer, a global survey which provides insight on public trust in societal institutions, states that trust is the currency that “defines an organisation’s license to operate, lead and succeed.”

NHS organisations rely on the expertise of their communications and engagement teams to build trust with people by taking into account feedback, opinions and experiences. This collection of information leads to strategic service co-design, ensuring the organisation provides the right care, at the right time, in the right place.

The abilities of these teams to build trust with diverse communities was especially evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using their highly-refined skills, communications and engagement professionals developed strategies to help protect as many people as possible from the virus, combating against misinformation and disinformation to provide factual clinical advice from trusted sources.

They used their deep knowledge and understanding of people, at a grassroots level, to tailor messages that directly helped people to keep safe.

Anne Gregory, in her review of NHS communicators during the pandemic, concluded that communications and engagement professionals played a “significant role” in protecting people, often selflessly putting the public before themselves.

Communications and engagement can address key challenges

As the NHS pivots in how it delivers care over the next ten years through three shifts – from hospital to community, analogue to digital and sickness to prevention – leaders must recognise that communications and engagement remains critical to the success of the NHS, just as it was in 1948 under Bevan’s stewardship, because a failure to listen to people and create meaningful dialogue will mean health inequalities are exacerbated.

The challenge for the future is to keep people at the heart of everything the NHS does by creating fruitful partnerships, listening to the public voice with authenticity and engaging with communities to build trust.

Communications and engagement professionals have all the necessary skills and abilities to meet this challenge and can help ensure that the NHS still belongs, firmly, to the people.

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Rabinder’s perspective on studying for the CIPR Professional PR Diploma 

Rabinder prepared this article for a CIPR Professional Diploma assignment while studying with PR Academy.

What do you see as the key benefits of studying the CIPR Professional PR Diploma?

Having spent the best part of two decades working in communications and engagement, the PR Diploma qualification allows me to underpin the practical experience I’ve gained with theory, tailored directly to what I do day-to-day. It’s a qualification I’ve wanted to achieve for many years and I’m glad I’ve had the opportunity to pursue it.

What has been your favourite part of the course so far?

I’ve enjoyed returning to academic study twenty years after graduating from university, and I’ve particularly welcomed the flexibility of learning in my spare time. I’ve enjoyed all aspects of the course because it’s all been relevant to my professional skills and experience and has helped me become a better practitioner and leader.

Have you been able to apply any of the learning, and if so, how?

I’ve tried to embed learning from the course wherever possible: from explaining PR models to colleagues, to drafting and implementing communications and engagement plans, and even ensuring I have a formal action in my appraisal to apply theories from one of the three assignments into a project within the next 12 months.

About the CIPR Professional PR Diploma 

The PR Diploma is a Master’s level qualification for more experienced practitioners who are looking to underpin what they do with theory and contemporary models.  Topics include PR strategy and planning, content management, media and engagement, measurement and evaluation, and PR leadership and process improvement. 

You have two years to complete it but with PR Academy you set your own study pace and many students finish in about ten months. 

Read our Complete Guide to CIPR Qualifications