Trust Communications Strategy a discussion draft

Transcription

1 ITEM: 09/005 Doc : 4 MEETING: TITLE: Trust Board 21 st January 200 Trust Communications Strategy a discussion draft SUMMARY: This discussion paper lays out a revised draft communications strategy for the Trust in line with the principles of customer focused marketing. The ultimate aim of our communications strategy is to support our strategic objective to be the hospital of choice for local people as a service provider and an employer. The strategy is evolving and is being developed following scoping of communications strategies at other Trusts and attendance at NHS Communications events and conferences. The has a small communications team who have great strengths in local networks and responding to external communication demands. The revised strategy puts more focus on internal communications and the active involvement of staff in being our communicators. The paper explores our stakeholders and key audiences, and then places these within the principles of our internal and external communications. There is an emphasis on building on the work internally in terms of briefings, senior leadership visibility, newsletter, intranet, and valuing staff by recognising and valuing achievement. Electronic communications in terms of our own, and responding to those developing externally, requires additional emphasis for the Trust as we move forward. The paper finally proposes an approach to evaluation and measures that can be captured that enable the Board to be assured of the effectiveness of the communications strategy, with both internal and external metrics, possibly in the form of a Customer Focussed Marketing dashboard. ACTION: The Board are asked to consider this discussion document and agree the next steps:-

2 - To develop the approach to measures; capturing baselines and setting targets by April. This will form part of the Customer Focussed Marketing Dashboard. - To incorporate comments from the Board in the final communications strategy - To continue strategy development with colleagues, the customer focused marketing steering group, reporting to the Executive Team REPORT FROM: Siobhan Harrington, Director of Primary Care SPONSORED BY: David Sloman, Chief Executive Financial Validation Lead: Compliance with statute, directions, policy, guidance Not Applicable Lead: All directors Compliance with Healthcare Commission Core/Developmental Standards Lead: Director of Nursing and Clinical Development Compliance with Auditors Local Evaluation standards (ALE) Lead: Director of Finance Compliance with requirements of FT application and monitoring regime Reference: Not Applicable Reference: Not Applicable Reference: Not Applicable Lead: Director of Strategy & Performance

3 Communications as part of customer focused marketing 1. Introduction The s internal and external communications are an integral part of customer focused marketing. The people working at the are key to the development and promotion of its reputation. The attitude and behaviour of staff provide added value to the organisation and can be the reason why patients and GPs choose the hospital. In addition, being such a large local employer, staff can play a vital role in influencing the reputation of the hospital in the community. The national and local media are used to promote the hospital and help build its reputation. The existing media strategy will continue, with a focus on promoting positive news stories from within the hospital, providing timely and accurate responses to media requests and training relevant spokespeople. Appendix 1 shows the proportion of positive and negative news stories in the local papers of Islington and Haringey from January to December Continuing to develop relationships with influential local opinion formers, such as local MPs, councils and mayors, as well as foundation trust governors and members, the community and voluntary groups, will also help build the s positive image. Customer focused marketing emphasises the importance of your staff being a key customer group within your strategy. Therefore in addition to marketing the hospital to its external audiences, the must market itself to its staff. The accessibility and visibility of senior managers, combined with an effective internal communications programme, will help ensure that staff feel respected and valued, and enable them to understand that the Trust is valuing their experience and expectations as employees. At present the Trust is beginning to implement this concept and within three years we hope that excellent communication is embedded as part of every staff member s role and seen as a key objective. It is therefore imperative that the senior leadership of the organisation continue to be visible across the Trust. A key focus in the year ahead is the ongoing development of the inter-, intraand extra-net sites. As communications tools these websites are becoming increasingly important both for all our stakeholders.

4 2. Communications stakeholders Care Quality Commission NHS London/Department of Health Public/ Patients/ Members Overview and Scrutiny Committees MPs Staff GPs/PCTs/ Partner organisations Links Media The diagram above illustrates some of the range of communication stakeholders the has. A communications strategy needs to segment it s stakeholders into internal and external communications, developing metrics that shows the impact of communications on these stakeholders.

5 3. Our key audiences Opinion formers (e.g. Media/MPs) PCTs/GPs Patients/public FT governors/members STAFF Our core audience is staff, followed by the public, then partner organisations and GPs (communications with this group is addressed earlier in the primary care communications strategy), foundation trust governors and members, then the media and other key opinion formers. It is worth noting the media and other opinion formers (eg local MPs and local groups) can have a disproportionate influence on public perception of the. One in four patients gains their impressions of the health service directly from friends and family who are in the NHS. Those impressions last and they are reputationally important. Communication with staff is a major step towards communicating favourably with all our audiences. 4. Internal communications As mentioned previously the single most important influence on a person s perception of an organisation is knowing someone who works there. Communicating well internally:

6 Helps create a can-do culture and builds a committed and highperforming workforce Boosts morale and motivation Encourages staff to be our ambassadors Helps the organisation learn our staff are a vital source of information and ideas Provide a better customer service informed frontline and other staff will be up to speed on what s happening in their department and the hospital This is particularly important when a high proportion of staff live locally. Ipsos MORI research shows that NHS staff are less likely to speak well of their organisation than private sector employees. Only one in three is likely to speak up for the organisation and sell its work externally. The research also shows that NHS organisations that perform best are most likely to have staff who would speak up for them externally. Organisations that keep their staff well informed are rewarded with more motivated staff. Staff communicating with each other is important. The principle of ensuring plenty of two-way communications is vital, with the acceptance that a pledge to listen to staff is backed by follow up action and feedback. It is important that staff: communicate effectively with colleagues know the roles and responsibilities of staff in other departments know how to contact staff in other departments. Ipsos MORI research also shows that staff have strong views about what kind of communication they prefer and trust. Regular face-to-face contact with both top and line management is by far the most favoured approach for communicating important issues. Top-down tools, such as newsletters and s, are useful to reinforce key messages but should not replace face-to-face contact. The following are the principles for internal communications: Make it two-way that means listening and acting upon what you hear. Make it face-to-face as much as possible. Explain vision, values and messages so that staff understand how their own work and individual services or projects fit into the bigger picture. Make it interesting and focused staff bombarded with s will switch off. Be honest tell the bad news as well as the good news. Say when you re not able to tell the full picture and give clear timings for when more information will be available. Involve managers staff like to find out about issues that affect them from their line managers.

7 Tie it in with external communications staff feel valued if they know important news as soon as possible. Don t make them read about it first in the local paper. 4.1 Internal communication channels Communicating across the organisation is not an easy task given the nature of the workforce, which includes both shift and part-time workers, not all of whom have access to computers, or even the time to access computers. A combination of internal communication tools will continue to be adopted to engage with staff at all levels of the trust. The chief executive s briefing. This takes the form of a monthly briefing by the chief executive to which senior managers are required to attend and is also open to all staff. This briefing is then cascaded face-to-face to staff by managers and circulated by to all staff after one week to ensure thorough coverage; Management and Board visibility needs to be developed further. Senior management are encouraged to regularly walk the job and be open to communication from staff. Senior nurses are now working one day a week on the wards and the Board has recently taken part in a back to the floor exercise with the facilities department which was well received and should be expanded. The Link, the monthly magazine for all staff is well received by staff and the public. This is also available on the intra and internet sites. The magazine carries news and more in-depth pieces on departments and initiatives, and has a feedback column and letters page. The Link is designed to inform, educate and entertain staff and also the public and GPs. The hospital s intranet is well-developed, accessible and straightforward to use. All staff identify it as being the place where they would look for information. We will seek to continue improving the site and use it as a primary source of information and news across the trust. It has the advantages of being relatively easy to update, while reducing the reliance on paper. The annual staff achievement awards; members of staff who have made an exceptional contribution to the Hospital are recognised through The Achievement Awards scheme. 5. External communications

8 5.1 Media communications The primary focus for external communications remains the news media and the media appetite for health stories, negative and positive, will continue to grow. Our media strategy is well developed and focuses on the following areas: Seeks and promotes positive news stories from within the hospital; Provides timely and accurate information in response to requests from the media; Ensures that issues which might result in negative publicity are dealt with swiftly and damage is limited and contained Identifies and trains relevant spokespeople for the media. 5.2 Patient communications Patients receive written information from the hospital through a variety of means: Patient information leaflets. Our patient information leaflets provide advice on the hospital s services and treatments, as well as more general topics. A new patient information group has been set up by the medical director to ensure the information is updated and expanded. Website. The hospital website is a vital medium which is easy to keep updated. However, work is required to ensure the information is kept up-to-date and is presented in a consistent manner. 5.3 Foundation Trust governors and members Foundation trust governors are being cultivated as ambassadors for the. They along with the foundation trust members are a key audience for promoting the. At present the governors meet on a regular basis and the members are kept in touch by and a quarterly newsletter Horizons. An annual open day is held for members to view the hospital and they are constantly asked to support events at the hospital. 5.4 Local Government and parliamentary communications The hospital seeks to maintain good relationships with local MPs, Lynne Featherstone, Jeremy Corbyn, Emily Thornberry and Glenda Jackson, through regular meetings and invitations to hospital events. The health scrutiny committee and other interested local authorities are regularly kept informed. 5.5 Local community and groups

9 The sees itself as very much part of the local community and through recent fundraising appeals has consolidated this position. We have excellent links with local schools including Highgate, Channing, St Aloysius, King Alfred s and St Joseph s, and with local organisations such as the Highgate Society, the Highgate Literary and Scientific Institution, Arsenal Football Club, Lauderdale House along with the Highbury Roundhouse, Barclays Bank and many others. The communications and fundraising departments will continue to forge these relationships. The development of LINks both in Islington and Haringey is underway with governance arrangements being established. This is a core group of stakeholders that we will need to engage and communicate effectively with. 6. Electronic communications The intranet/internet/extranet provides the trust with a very valuable communications tool. To date the function has grown organically and although it has improved markedly over the past two years much more work is needed. All the sites act as portals for staff, other health professionals and the public and aim to provide up-to-date, consistent and useful information. The overall aims of our websites are to: Be focussed on the right audiences Be information-led Be up-to-date Be interactive Easy to understand Easy to navigate Promote the objectives and work of the trust Look consistent Encourage staff to publish information Economical to produce and maintain Ensure user feedback influences services Editorial control of the website The content of each web page is the responsibility of the department providing the information. It is the author s responsibility to check their proof for accuracy and appropriateness Editorial control rests with the web editor and communications team who have the authority to edit text

10 The author will be expected to regularly check their web pages and inform the web editor of any amendments required. The web editor will contact departments who have not requested any amendments in the last six months to check for updates. In terms of external electronic communications media, the Trust response to new and developing websites must be managed. The latest example of this is the ongoing development of NHS Choices. The team aims to review and respond to comments placed on the website by members of the public. We are in active contact with the Department of Health team responsible for NHS Choices and have developed our Trust page on this site. Feedback from the Department has said that about 20% of comments on hospitals are very good; 20% not good and 60% in the mid range. There have been some technical issues with us being able to respond to comments within a fixed timescale. 7. Evaluation Measurement and evaluation is playing an increasingly important role for communications to prove its value. The communications department will continue to evaluate both external and internal communications. Internal communication stakeholders managers and staff should be surveyed regularly to give feedback on the methods and impact of the internal communications methods. Individual communication methods, such as chief executive s briefings or the internal newsletter, can be monitored and evaluated regularly. Staff panels can be useful in providing ongoing feedback. It is important that feedback is acted upon to improve staff confidence. There is also the Healthcare Commission annual staff survey which has a number of questions related to communication. A significant way that communications departments are showcasing the results of media relations is through column inch of editorial coverage (see appendix 1). There is an ad hoc monthly report detailing the number of hits each service (e.g. Paediatrics, Imaging etc) received on the website and it is planned to produce a more detailed report on the whole website. From January to December 2008 there were hits to the Whttington Homepage. It is proposed that other opinion leaders such as MPs are interviewed for their views on the and its communications. As far as the local community is concerned the participation of many in events such as the Highgate Fun Run or the annual Funday are testament to the community s commitment to the and vice versa. The final and most important measure of marketing and communications is whether patients are choosing to come to the for their care.

11 In summary the measures of the communications strategy will be: Referrals/market share/market volume Analysis of media coverage Website hits Regular in house staff survey National annual staff survey NHS Choices completion of comments in response to patient feedback The Board are asked to consider this discussion document and agree the next steps:- - to support the development of the approach to measures; capturing baselines and setting targets by April. This will form part of the Customer focused marketing dashboard. - to feedback comments from the Board in terms of the final strategy - to continue development with colleagues, the customer-focused marketing steering group, reporting to the Executive Team.

12 Appendix 1 Total Local Press Coverage in Column Inches Good Press Bad Press Total Local Press in column inches Bad Press Good Press 0 Total Local Press Coverage by Number of Stories Good press Bad press

13 Total Local Press by number of stories Bad press Good press 0

14 Local Press Coverage In Column Inches Bad Press Good Press January February March April May June July August September October November December

15 Local Press Coverage by number of stories Bad Press Good Press January February March April May June July August September October November December 15