NHSEI - Covid-19 Comms Support

1, NHSEI South East Communications team

2. Struggling with COVID19 response, the Head of Communications in the South East region urgently needed to mobilise additional communications expertise. Our team, having both NHS and major incident experience, initially developed the operating model, outlined the communications roles required, how the team needed to work and devised the rota. Following this upfront support, SCW’s team of 4 also joined the rota to provide additional capacity and resilience in managing media and social media support, systems support for national briefings and regular communication on the deaths figure. To facilitate the social distancing measures in place both teams implemented an innovative and flexible way of remote working to accommodate those with parenting and other commitments.

3. NHSE/I SE region needed people with communication expertise who could effectively cover the 12 hour weekday and 8 hour weekend communications provision required. SCW provided 4 communications professionals to support the existing 8 NHSE/I colleagues. Fortuitously for this project much of the project work that the SCW team had been involved with had been paused due to the coronavirus crisis.
The key was to rapidly mobilise in ever changing circumstances. Our team initially developed the operating model, outlined the communications roles required, how the team needed to work and devised the rota. At this point NHSE/I realised that they needed more than the initial upfront support and SCWs team were added to the rota to provide media and social media support, media and systems support for national briefings and also regular communication on the deaths figure.
Members of both teams had to take a new and highly flexible approach to working hours, processes and team communications to facilitate those with parenting and other commitments and ensure the new remote working scenario could work for all.

We have continued to flex the operating model and it has now gone through 3 iterations of changes to ensure it is responsive and meeting the team needs as the response changes.

4. Crisis Communications, Media Management,Stakeholder Engagement and Management, Campaign management,

5. SCW were able to provide communications colleagues who were experienced both within the NHS and in dealing with major incidents to join the team within a 3 day time period?

The team provided resilience, particularly important when members of the SE team succumbed to the virus, and to avoid burn out due to the long hours being worked

A rapid and flexible response ensured timely implementation of an innovative new way of working necessitated by the social distancing measures in response to the pandemic.