Excellence in Healthcare Collaboration and Partnerships

Summary of work

Meningitis kills more children under five in the UK than any other infectious disease and leaves many more maimed with lifelong disabilities. However, parents have a worryingly low understanding of meningitis and the protection that their children receive through vaccinations. A collaborative digital peer-to-peer public awareness campaign with the three UK meningitis charities was executed to call for parents to ‘Keep Watching’ for the signs and symptoms as children are not fully protected against all strains of the disease. The scale of collaboration was unprecedented. Through joining forces, the united efforts led to a notable increase in awareness among parents that children are not fully protected against meningitis. The campaign reached an audience of approximately 31 million, including a Facebook community of over 2,000 built in four months; film views of over 6.6 million; and 24.7 million opportunities to see the campaign via on- and offline media channels. 

“We strongly believe that this campaign has significantly increased parental understanding and recognition of the disease which will ultimately save lives and protect families from the devastating effects of meningitis.”
Meningitis UK

“The scale of this collaboration is unprecedented and by joining forces we believe we have made a significant impact on meningitis awareness in the UK. This knowledge can save lives.”
Meningitis Trust

“The three meningitis charities have always used their distinctive, individual strengths to combat the disease but this was a fantastic opportunity for us to collaborate on a critical health message aimed at parents and at saving lives. We believe it will give parents the knowledge and confidence they need to recognise and react to meningitis.”
Meningitis Research Foundation

Judges comments

We had a great debate in coming to our final winner. This true partnership was a winning combination that resulted in a step change in risk reduction and also changed behaviours, in the process saving lives. 

This is the first time that these groups have ever collaborated on a project and it must have been a real challenge to pull all of the different agendas together to work on one campaign. They used a real 360 degree approach and made great use of communication platforms with a strong digital component. The level of engagement with the campaign was immense and great outcomes were achieved for all concerned.