NHS Coventry and Rugby Clinical Commissioning Group led an innovative approach which brought together health and social care organisations from across the city to collaboratively tackle this issue.
Evidence showed that parents were taking their children to A&E when other health services would be more appropriate and could see them quicker - chicken-pox being an example of this.
Similarly, university students away from home for the first time may not be registered with a local GP so were frequent attendees to A&E. The group recognised that, although some campaign messages were consist across our target groups, some were more relevant to others i.e. 111 being free from mobiles which is particularly important to students who may not have credit on their phones.
A communications campaign took place between December 2014 to February 2015 which specifically targeted our key audiences in a variety of communications best suited to have maximum impact. In recognition of the fact that in communications there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach, a number of different approaches were taken to maximise our impact such as online, face-to-face and traditional communication channels.
The campaign included over 100 ‘on-the-street’ targeted engagement sessions, hire of a branded ad-van which travelled between key local locations, an integrated press release and social media campaign, Perhaps the most exiting part of the campaign is a series of three informal, but informative, animation videos - focussed on minor sports injuries, accessing the morning-after-pill and treating children with chickenpox - all ailments relevant to our key groups.
Please see below for links to the videos:
Emergency? with Jake and Blake :
Emergency? with Zoe and Chloe (and Maisy and Daisy)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dbkDGdDy0U
Emergency? with Holly and Polly - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SU8MjLkZdEg
The three 111 animation videos have had a great response on social media and, on Facebook alone, the videos have had a combined view count of 46,000 with over 2,000 likes. This has been without paid-advertising and through word-of-mouth alone.
The work of our campaign, alongside national coverage, has contributed to an increase of calls to 111 in Coventry and Rugby - not only in our target groups, but overall.
In Coventry and Rugby, there was an 81% increase (10,254) in the number of calls to 111 in the months of November, December and January 2014/15 (22,940) compared to the identical periods in the previous year 2013/14 (12,686).
Due to the success of the campaign and recognition of the fact that A&E pressures are all year round, a second additional phase will follow this summer aimed at frequent flyers and BME groups.