Excellence in Communications - Payers/Policy Makers

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This category recognises projects that involve regional, national or European communications initiatives with one or more key payer/policymaker stakeholder group(s). The projects must clearly demonstrate the value of the intervention, develop and broaden debate with governmental and/or other relevant stakeholders, in order to:

  • Improve patient/service user outcomes by challenging inequalities in clinical care, access to medicines or services, or in other factors undermining health outcomes
  • Improve standards of care for patients/service users in terms of treatment, coordination or delivery of services, and/or clinical practice.
  • Secure tangible policy progress that will deliver health benefits either at a population level or to a defined group of patients/ service users.

Judges will want to see evidence of sustained change and/or a clear positive impact for patients/service users and/or their families/wider population health, while delivering value for health services at the same time.

Other points to consider when writing your entry:

  • What is it about your contribution that is novel? Who else was working in this space and how did your campaign engage with them?
  • What was the context at the time of your project, e.g. what situation stimulated the work or how did you identify the (policy) problem?
  • How did you identify the most appropriate strategy and tactics to meet your objectives? Did you use an influencing or advocacy model?
  • How will your impact be sustained going forward?
  • If necessary, how has your project/campaign had to adapt to the hugely changing political environment. How did you optimise the work?
  • What did you learn? What would you do differently?

Work conducted during the three-year period between January 2021 and December 2023 will be eligible. If the submission has been entered previously, the current entry must provide benchmarks to clearly demonstrate how the programme was evaluated and how it has developed over time.

Don’t forget:

  • provide a copy of any previous submission for this work
  • be open! Were there any other contributors to the programme?
  • make sure your entry is consistent and links to your objectives clearly

JUDGING CRITERIA AND ENTRY FORMAT:

Entry Title

Please give a simple title for your entry of no more than ten words

Executive Summary – 200 words. 0 (zero) marks

This will be used if your entry is selected as a finalist and does not need to be anonymised.

Main entry

1. Budget Band Information, as below:

Band A under £10,000
Band B £10,001-£25,000
Band C £25,001-£50,000
Band D £50,001-£100,000
Band E £100,001-£200,000
Band F over £200,001.

If your client has declined to allow this, you must state this within your submission.

  • Failure to provide the budget band seriously impacts the judge’s ability to assess the entry against other entries and may result in the entry being disqualified
  • The budget band provides important context for judging the innovation, delivery and impact of a piece of work.
  • Impressive work is not always dependent on budget size, so there is no right or wrong budget.

2. Situation Analysis and Benchmarking– 15 marks (300 words)

  • In this section you should show the judges how well you understood the situation at the start of the project
  • Use this section/analysis to clearly lay out benchmark data that you will refer to in your measurement of effectiveness later
  • Show the judges the best information, data and insights you have about uptake of health interventions, current practice, defining/segmenting audiences, identifying educational or information needs, which channels will best reach the audience, competitive environment, creative landscape before the start of your work.

Judges’ top tips

  • We work and operate in a world where there is a wealth of data and insights, so there is really no excuse for projects and programmes that are planned without this data.
  • The judges will reward the strength and robustness of this data i.e. a well conducted piece of client market research will score more highly than a two-question internal survey monkey
  • The judges will reward the variety of data that prompts useful insights and helps to shape a holistic view of the situation and audiences.

3. Objectives – 15 marks (250 words)

Describe the objectives for the project or programme including outputs (i.e., what materials/platforms are produced), out-takes (i.e., post-event evaluation, surveys showing changes in knowledge/understanding, social media/website engagement, sharing and commenting), and outcomes (i.e., changes in patient behaviour or outcomes, clinical practice or health policy versus the benchmark stated in the situation analysis) and specifically how these will be measured

4. Strategy – 15 marks (250 words)

  • Please outline what your strategy was and why
  • Refer to the data and insight in the situation analysis section
  • Explain why this was the right strategy and any points to emphasise bold or innovative strategy selection.

Judges’ top tips

The judges will:

  • Reward clarity of thought around strategies and how they are communicated – bullet points may be better than long prose
  • Assess how well the chosen strategy/strategies might achieve objectives
  • Reward entries showing a clever or insightful way that you interpreted the data and insights from the situation analysis to set your strategy
  • Reward innovation in strategy
  • Recognise how different communications disciplines are blended as part of the strategic approach.

5. Implementation – 15 marks (400 words)

  • Please describe how you implemented the project or programme
  • Please briefly outline why these specific tactics were selected
  • For a programme this should include describing what tactics were deployed to implement the strategy
  • For a meeting or stand-alone event this should describe how the meeting or event was delivered.
  • Refer to any other players working in the same space and if there was collaboration or combined efforts.
  • Include the steps taken to reduce environmental impact and support diversity, equality and inclusion as part of the project.

Judges’ top tips

  • The judges need to know what you did or developed to judge this section – please keep descriptions clear and succinct
  • When awarding marks in this section the judges will reward:
    • a logical selection of tactical projects or outputs
    • creativity and innovation in the way you execute the tactics
    • clever selection and maximisation of channels
    • scientific acumen and robustness
    • the use of insights in finding creative ways to engage the defined audiences.

6a. Effectiveness Part One: Outputs and Out-takes vs Objectives - 10 marks (200 words)

  • To help the judges assess the strength of the evaluation, please describe how successful the project or programme was in terms of outputs and out-takes achieved versus the relevant measurements set in the Objectives section
  • You may include comments from third-party stakeholders in this section but ONLY if they clearly help to demonstrate the impact of the work and were a pre-planned part of your measurement approach

6b. Effectiveness Part Two: Outcomes vs Objectives - 10 marks (200 words)

  • To help the judges assess the strength of the evaluation, please describe how successful the project or programme was in terms of the outcomes achieved versus the relevant measurements set in the Objectives section
  • You may include comments from third-party stakeholders in this section but ONLY if they clearly help to demonstrate the impact of the work and were a pre-planned part of your measurement approach

Supporting Materials

Please only send information that helps the judges to see how you researched, planned, implemented and measured the programme within each specific category, e.g.:

  • Information illustrating how the strategy was brought to life is helpful, but we don’t need a copy of every item
  • Information supporting the evaluation and measurement is the most relevant
  • ESSENTIAL: a summary sheet must be supplied detailing each piece of supporting material and clearly identifying where evidence can be found to support claims in the entry
  • PLUS: An approved visual image or video that supports the entry for use in print, results pages online and in the AV.