Patients' perceptions of health and care creates media and campaign opportunities for health organisations
The latest Public Perceptions of Health and Social Care report from The Health Foundation and Ipsos MORI contains a number of findings that could be useful to healthcare PR, marketing and communications directors and to their CEOs.
Perception that healthcare standards are falling
Two thirds (64%) of people in the UK feel that health and wellbeing has worsened over the last 12 months and half (50%) think it will continue to get worse over the next 12 months.
In this kind of landscape, innovation can inspire optimism.
Whether it is ideas for policy, exciting new technologies or real-world examples of excellence, understanding how your organisation can position itself as the hero battling against the current challenges is vital to achieving cut through and shaping public and health and care system opinion of your offering.
One of Evergreen PR’s first campaigns was for the leading physiotherapy company Ascenti, which was launching an innovative virtual physiotherapy service just as the pandemic hit.
We combined innovation with social purpose when we launched a white paper report comparing the clinical outcomes achieved by virtual physiotherapy with face-to-face treatment, alongside a special offer of free treatment for people over the age of 70 (who had been advised to shield) - prioritising the right audiences, messages and activity to gain cut-through.
The Guardian called our client, Ascenti, a superhero brand for their role helping older people with mobility issues during the pandemic following the launch of an offer devised by Evergreen PR.
The Guardian called our client a “superhero brand”, the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy ran a piece about the study in their Innovations Database. Some 40+ highly targeted and influential press articles later, and Ascenti had attracted 10 new high value corporate clients and seen their search visibility improve threefold. You can see the case study here.
The influence of the media
There are a number of findings in the report that suggest that media coverage and online conversation - as well as personal experiences - could be enhancing negative feelings around the state of health and social care right now. For example:
People’s opinion of the service provided by their local NHS is better than their perception of how the NHS is performing nationally. Considering that our personal experience of NHS services will usually be local, this suggests that online conversation, which is dominated by talk of record waiting lists, staff strikes and funding crises, is influencing perceptions.
People are happier with A&E services than they were six months ago, which, the report highlights, coincides with a reduction in press coverage about negative experiences of A&E
This suggests that healthcare organisations that can tell a compelling story around a real world issue by prioritising the right message to gain mainstream media cut-through, could influence public opinion.
There is a belief that Government policy must change
The report also contains some interesting findings about people’s perception of the role of the Government in health and social care:
Most people think the Government has an important role in addressing the main risks for ill-health. The Health Foundation suggest that this means people are open to the Government being bolder in its efforts to address preventable ill-health.
Yet relatively few people think the Government are doing a good job in this area at the moment.
Only 16% of people think that the Government has the right policies in place to support public health, 9% think it has the right policies for the NHS and just 6% think it has the right policies in place for social care.
This data, combined with the fact that all parties are beginning to shape their policies ahead of next year’s General Election, means there is a real opportunity for campaigning organisations to help shape future policy.
Sir John Hayes MP talks about his personal experience of tinnitus, as David Stockdale, Chief Executive of our client, Tinnitus UK, at that time, looks on. Sir John was speaking at the Tinnitus Roundtables event that Evergreen PR organised and ran at the House of Commons.
So much of this is about finding the right argument, plugging into existing narratives and exposing unfairness - again, this is about prioritisation.
We supported Tinnitus UK to launch a Tinnitus Manifesto, after we had devised and held a roundtable discussion event (pictured) at the House of Commons. The manifesto highlighted how overlooked the condition had been, how significantly it impacted mental health and provided clear expert-informed policy calls on what needed to happen next - we saw these as our ‘priority levers’.
That campaign attracted some 140,000+ petition signatures, following blanket mainstream media coverage and a first ever debate on the topic in the House of Lords. Later that year, the Department of Health and Social Care launched a working group, which included our client’s CEO, to discuss tinnitus research funding. You can read the case study here.
So what should health tech, med tech and health charity organisations do with all of this?
In my view, these findings, which clearly demonstrate public dissatisfaction with the current state of health and social care, provide a strong narrative starting point for health organisations with the ideas, products and services that could improve performance in public health, the NHS or social care.
The fact that perceptions appear to be influenced to some degree by media and online conversation also highlights the value of effective communications strategies that are able cut through the noise and shape conversation among the public and/or the health and care system.
At Evergreen PR, we use our MERTO Framework to achieve this through prioritisation and behaviour science. The MERTO method includes our Narrative Framework to Action model, which supports the use of insights to prioritise messages that will win attention, create enthusiasm, build authority and trigger action. Importantly, it makes sure these messages reach your priority audiences too through our Audience ID and Power Scoring model.
If you’d like to find out more about it, take a look at our services page and read the Introducing MERTO report or sign-up to MERTO Uncovered, our free email series. If you’d like to chat and find out more specifically how we can help you and your organisation to achieve your priority objectives, get in touch using the details below.
Leigh Greenwood Chart.PR is the founder and managing director of Evergreen PR, the healthcare PR agency that drives tangible outcomes. To contact Leigh, call 0114 437 2487 or email leigh@evergreenpr.co.uk for a free consultation.