Challenge
We were approached by the North East Urgent and Emergency Care Network (NEUCN) after it received funding from the NHS’ New Models of Care programme for a range of pioneering projects. As a result of researching patient perception, there was a significant opportunity to support parents of young children. This project focused on producing a suite of materials to support health care in the under-fives including an app, booklet and marketing to target key groups.
Tasks
A working group was developed which consisted of representatives from paediatrics, communications and engagement team, nurses, health visitors and pharmacists from across NHS organisations in the North East. This project aimed to improve self-care, providing an education tool for parents and carers with children under five to give them advice and support. It was rolled out across the North East region to ensure that the same advice is given out consistently across the region.
The target audience was identified as:
- Parents and carers of children under five years old o Aimed specifically at the Mosaic Group M (family basics) which is a group that is over represented at Emergency Departments
- Healthcare professionals
- NHS organisations
- Local councils for children’s centres
Using the intelligence gathered, the group developed a booklet and an app containing a feature that geo-targets NHS services to the user so that they can find the nearest NHS service to them. This was targeted at parents and carers of under-fives to help to build confidence and encourage self-care. This campaign was launched on 30 September and included the following activity: Launch in partnership with regional radio station Booklet distribution across the North East to NHS services. This meant that clinicians could hand them out as part of conversations about looking after the health of a child Information card distribution to pharmacies, children centres, play groups to encourage people to download the app Digital advertising via Mumsnet, online newspaper sites, Google adwords, Facebook Insertions in the Primary Times and Raring2Go (magazines which are put into toddlers back packs at school)
The app and booklet has been developed by NHS organisations working together to provide help and advice that can help parents and carers of children under five.
Dr Stewart Findlay
Results
The NHS child health app and booklet has been available for eight weeks (at 25 November 2016) and is still in the early stages. However given this short timescale, it has achieved the following:
- Positive comments from the target audience – examples given below
- Positive comments from healthcare professionals
- Nearly 3,500 downloads
- 30,500 page views of the app by individuals
- On average, users spend over two minutes on the app
- 61% of users of the app are under 35
- Social media reach of 273k, over 200 shares and 53k view of the video
The statistics on the app demonstrate that parents and carers of children under five are feeling more confident (number of uses and the average time spent).