Winner: Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership

The ICS’ communications behaviour change programme was designed to address vaccine hesitancy in ethnic minority communities. It was based on in-depth research that produced valuable insight into people’s reasons for vaccine hesitancy. These high quality, segmented insights were used to form a targeted behaviour change campaign to increase uptake of the vaccine among people from ethnic minority backgrounds in the Cheshire and Merseyside area. The post-campaign research demonstrated that the campaign had a positive effect on sentiment, with surveys showing an increase in the likelihood of individuals to get vaccinated from 68% to 79%.

Highly Commended: National Institute for Health Research; North Bristol NHS Trust; North East Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust; North East and North Cumbria ICS; and Rotherham, Doncaster and South Humber NHS Foundation Trust

Sponsor: Behaviour Change Marketing Bootcamp

Winner: Mid and South Essex Health and Care Partnership ICS

The Essex Vax Van project is a unique partnership between the NHS in Essex and Ford, which resulted in the construction and deployment of the world's first ever custom-built COVID-19 vaccination vehicle. The comms team was a key enabler in delivering this critical piece of outreach work to get the vaccine out to more local communities. The campaign demonstrated how working in close partnership with local people increased the uptake of the COVID-19 vaccination.

Highly Commended: Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group, Dorset HealthCare and partners; and NHS England

Sponsor: NHS Professionals

Winner: Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group, Dorset HealthCare and partners

The Get The Jab done campaign in Dorset put data and insight at its heart. Working across organisational boundaries, the organisations were able to bring together research academics, NHS colleagues and people from seldom heard communities build an understanding who the campaign should be targeted at, and what messages would work best. The result was a faster and higher take up and their learning has been shared with other local partners to support their programmes.

Highly Commended: Rotherham, Doncaster and South Humber NHS Foundation Trust

Sponsor: Tandem Comms

Winner: NHS Find Your Place

The communications team worked strategically to support colleagues with the challenge of recruitment of medical trainees. The team used data well and built the creative development on insight, promoting the region as a place to learn and live. They worked collaboratively and could demonstrate outcomes that benefited the whole organisation, demonstrating engagement and impact.

Highly Commended: Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust; Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group, Dorset HealthCare and partners; Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (delivered on behalf of the North East and North Cumbria ICS); and St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

Sponsor: React and Share

Winner: Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership

‘Getting under the skin’ was an initiative to tackle the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on BAME communities and to address vaccination hesitancy. Using geo-targeted data and research-driven insights, the team sought to understand views and experiences of COVID-19 and the vaccine; cultural, behavioural, and religious influences; and communication and engagement preferences in different communities. Over four months there was a remarkable increase in vaccine uptake among the target audience.

Highly Commended: Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire Healthier Together Partnership; Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group, Dorset HealthCare and partners; and South Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust

Sponsor: Loop by Allocate

Winner: West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership ICS

The ICS’ Check-in Campaign has saved lives by addressing the profoundly important issue of suicide prevention. It sets the benchmark for objective-setting, delivery and measurement. The judges all agreed this work provides a highly effective template for all other communications teams to follow.

Highly Commended: Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust; East Midlands Academic Health Science Network; London Ambulance Service NHS Trust; Mid and South Essex Health and Care Partnership; and North West Boroughs Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

Sponsor: Loop by Allocate

Winner: Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

The trust comms team worked hard to drive forward the health and wellbeing agenda with a  programme of activity within the trust that was extremely well delivered or supported by the communications team, across a range of channels. The judges were particularly impressed with how the trust took seriously its role within the community, raising money for local foodbanks and other charities. A good supply of supporting information to the submission brought to life the extent of the support, with well-designed and thought-out assets and materials in evidence.

Highly Commended: Keeping Well NWL Service; Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust; Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust; St Ann’s Hospice; and St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

Sponsor: Loop by Allocate

Winner: South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust

Not only did the board appoint the trust’s first ever board-level director but they enabled that postholder to deliver with investment across all operational functions. The strategy was multi-layered and encompassed staff and patient engagement, backed up by investments in infrastructure.  These investments delivered results for external audiences and internal ones too, evidenced by the 10% uplift in NHS Staff Surveys.

Highly Commended: Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Sponsor: Grayling

Winner: Sharon Berkhout, Devon Partnership NHS Trust

Sharon’s exceptional contribution to raising the profile of mental health and disability awareness, through campaigns such as Real Men Talk, has impacted far and wide and is an admirable reflection of her passion and dedication to helping others.Her openness in listening to and advising her teams, throughout her 20 years of distinguished service for the NHS, has been a driving force to both improving internal administrative procedures for staff and as a highly effective ambassador for engaging with external stakeholders, numerous platforms, and across communication disciplines. 

Highly Commended: John Underwood, Bill Nichols and Alison Brown, Centre for Health Communications Research; and Nick Hulme, East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust

Sponsor: Touch design

Winners:

London: Melody Hodge, Croydon Health Services NHS Trust

East of England: Abbie Jarvis, Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

South East: George Welch, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Midlands: Catherine Mellor, University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust

North East and Yorkshire: Eliza Burke, Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

South West: Daisy Oakes, Devon Partnership NHS Trust

North West: Peter Thomas, Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust

Sponsor: Ryalto