Finalist
The NHS’ Hidden Heroes
Summary of work
NHS Property Services (NHSPS) staff are integral in helping to keep the health service running. They are the cleaners fighting infection, the porters making sure everything is where it needs to be and the caterers providing cups of tea: yet they are too often overlooked.
As COVID-19 struck, and the NHS needed to expand its capacity to care for patients, NHSPS needed to fill hundreds of temporary roles on the frontline.
We had to communicate the availability of the positions, whilst raising awareness of the important role these people played in our health service, inspiring others to join the ranks themselves at a critical time for the NHS.
For an organisation that was fairly unknown - as demonstrated through our reputation audit - there was no better opportunity to raise awareness of this army of frontline ‘hidden heroes’ supporting our health service, often working in the shadow of their clinical counterparts. We proactively put people at the forefront – something NHSPS had not done before – bringing together a workforce of thousands of staff, spread across different geographies.
We delivered a people-focused campaign to media and on social, surpassing all targets; recruiting new staff and raising awareness of their crucial work.
Judges’ comments
We liked how the implementation of this programme evolved as the story did, to capitalise upon the news cycle and any needs and trends. The concept of featuring people in the search for people contributed to the success of an impressive well thought through, simple but effective campaign.
