1. society
2. unrest and war

On the brink of
SoMething special?
The first comprehensive analysis of
Social Media in the NHS
December 2014
On the brink of SoMething special?
Table of Contents
Preface by Chris Hopson - NHS Providers ..............................................................1
Introduction - on the brink of SoMething special? ...................................................3
Unique analysis and research
Passionate Practitioners
Moving ‘beyond the brink’
4
5
6
How widespread is social media as an official activity across the NHS? ...............8
The domination of Twitter
The virtual quadropoly of the ‘Big Four’
all levels of Activity across all types of nhs organisation
NHS Organisational twitter accounts - the top 50
9
9
10
11
Who are the stealth revolutionaries of social media across the NHS? ..................14
The national ‘Followers’
The national ‘Followed’
The NHS ‘boat-rockers’
14
14
14
The NHS news junkies
The NHS Policy Wonks
14
14
Moving beyond the brink - the power of SMILE .....................................................26
The three challenges for successful NHS Social Media
Approaches to meet the challenges
Objective assessment across four Dimensions
What is the current integrated capability level of NHS social media?
Attempting to find needles in haystacks
A revolutionary solution to the problem
26
26
27
29
30
31
What lies ‘beyond the brink’? .................................................................................34
Beyond the brink for official channels
The Permanent Revolution - from broadcasters to communitarians
Mobilising the social capitalists
34
36
37
About NHS Providers - the association of foundation trusts and trusts ................40
About J B McCrea Ltd 41
Preface by Chris Hopson - NHS Providers
NHS Providers is delighted to support the production of this groundbreaking
Report - the first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS.
These are exciting but challenging times for the NHS. We are in the midst of
the deepest and longest financial squeeze in the NHS’s 65 year history. A
squeeze that will continue for another five years. The recent publication by
NHS England of its Five Year Forward View has set out a radical blueprint for
transformation and change. Our members are rising to that challenge in a
myriad of innovative ways. This Report shows for the first time how
harnessing social media is an important element of the information revolution
that will be essential for successful transformation in the NHS.
Four out of five NHS organisations now use at least one form of social media
as part of their official communications and engagement channels. These
are early days and the NHS as a whole is at a state of Low Maturity in its
adoption of social media, but the appetite for adoption and eagerness to learn
how to use social media is clear. This isn’t being done for fun. It’s part and
parcel of the changes and innovation our members are leading across health
and social care because trying to run harder in the existing NHS model of
care simply won’t work in the future. It is clear that social media is an
essential part of effective dialogue and knowledge sharing by the NHS and its
patients and stakeholders, its staff and communities and that NHS providers
are seizing the opportunities it offers.
There is a remarkable degree of consensus on what that NHS transformation
should look like:
• getting serious about prevention;
• empowering patients to manage their own health, wellbeing and long term
conditions;
• moving to new ways of delivering care that eliminate the artificial
boundaries between primary and secondary care, physical and mental
health and health and social care whilst recognising the contribution of
each;
• modernising the workforce;
• exploiting the information revolution;
• accelerating innovation.
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
Our members recognise that Social Media - with its step-change ability to
drive engagement and co-operation across traditional boundaries of
organisations and localities - can play a crucial role in supporting all aspects
of this transformation.
I particularly welcome this Report’s revelation of the social media Stealth
Revolution that has been taking place in the NHS beneath our noses and
away from the headlines. The hundreds of thousands of individuals, many of
whom work with and for NHS Providers members, who make up this
revolution - from Chief Executives to frontline staff to patients, carers and their
families - are examples to us all of the sheer ingenuity and passion that
underpins the NHS.
Our members and ourselves as an organisation are on the same journey of
discovery and revolution as the wider NHS. For example, just the official
Twitter accounts of our Board Members and their organisations have 50,000
Twitter followers between them. These come from across the provider
Foundation Trust and Trust sector - acute, community, mental health and
ambulance. So we know intimately and first hand the social media challenges
the NHS faces and the opportunities on offer.
NHS Providers itself has recently carried out a Social Media Capability
Assessment that shows our own performance and capability is exactly in line
with the NHS average. We have used its findings to develop a tightly
integrated Social Media Improvement Plan which we will be implementing in
the New Year, significantly ramping up our own capability and understanding,
as well as the support, advice and social media services we can offer to our
Members.
To all the stealth revolutionaries, we raise a cheer. With them all, our
members look forward to transforming the NHS anew.
Chris Hopson
Chief Executive, NHS Providers
December 2014
@ChrisCEOHopson
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
1
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
2
Introduction - on the brink of SoMething special?
NHS Social Media is at a crucial point in its development and maturity, not dissimilar to
the adoption around 20 years ago of the web itself by NHS organisations, both at
national level and amongst frontline organisation and their staff delivering on the
ground.
It has matured from being a new-fangled concept, through a bleeding-edge set of tools
and approaches, to a point where most NHS organisations now realise:
•
it is increasingly the arena of choice and activity for growing numbers of
patients, families, staff and stakeholders;
•
the NHS really needs to up its game and begin to use it properly;
•
if used properly it could deliver real value to the NHS itself as well as the
people working in it and the individuals it exists to serve; and
•
it isn’t going to go away.
Like the early days of the web, and associated false dawns and fashions such as the
first attempts at “e-government” in the early 1990s, the initial commercial approach into
the NHS of business-related social media was led and delivered mainly by technologyfocussed or traditional consulting and PR firms. This has often led to attempts to sell
into the NHS approaches and solutions that are heavily concentrated on specific
channels, ‘technology-for-technology’s sake’ projects or in some cases simply
repackaged traditional communications, management and PR consultancy sales and
services with a tacked-on social media sprinkling and an unhealthy dose of
overcomplicated fancy jargon designed to mystify.
There has also been a danger for centrally-managed ‘social media’ activities or
initiatives to take place within frontline NHS organisations as standalone activities, not
fully embedded in core priorities such as listening, engagement or service
improvement.
Meanwhile, however, something remarkable has been building out on the NHS
frontline and in the homes and lives of thousands of individual members of staff, young
leaders, middle management, patients and their families. These thousands-strong
individuals have been joined by a growing cadre of visionary Chief Executives and
senior management. Rather than wait for their organisations to catch up, these
individuals have begun to embrace and promote social media, using it to help with the
day to day challenges they face and the basic human instinct they possess to connect
with and support each other. In some cases, it has led to truly remarkable
transformations in engagement and communication between the NHS and its users.
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
Their combination of determination, ingenuity, passion, mutual support and sometimes
sheer bloody-mindedness has been a stealth revolution whose day is about to come.
This stealth revolution may not have been televised. But it has been tweeted, retweeted, favourited, liked, followed, tagged, poked, shared, webcast, thunder-clapped
and crowdsourced.
Won’t allow us to access social media through the organisation’s IT infrastructure?
We’ll use our own devices. Don’t see the benefit of using social media during worktime? We’ll use it during our breaks and home time. Doesn’t fit with our inflexible
website and jealously-guarded web policy? We’ll ignore the web and go straight into
the hands of our stakeholders and users through social media and their mobile
devices. Say it can’t be done? We’ll find thousands of others who are actually doing it.
Stay in a safe comfort zone? We’ll go out on a limb and gamble on something
revolutionary, innovative and new.
This maturing process has yet to fully run its course but, thankfully, there are
increasing signs that the NHS is finally ready to step up to the mark and bring social
media into mainstream core business operations, delivering real value and
improvement across activities such as listening, engagement, improvement and
collaborative innovation. It also appears that the stealth revolution increasingly is
beginning to be embraced by mainstream leadership and frontline across the NHS.
However the bulk of the mainstream NHS still doesn’t yet know how to truly embrace
and exploit social media and in some cases remains suspicious that it could be simply
another fad. As a result, the NHS has found itself teetering stubbornly on the brink of
something special.
This Report is intended to help the NHS move beyond the brink,
fully embrace the Social Media stealth revolution and reap the
benefits for staff, patients, service users and their families.
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
3
UNIQUE ANALYSIS AND RESEARCH
At the Report’s core is the first ever comprehensive analysis of the prevalence and
official use of social media by NHS organisations. The months-long detailed research
and analysis that has gone into its findings are unique. Rather than relying on sample
surveys, incomplete questionnaires or anecdotes, our research team personally visited
every website used by all NHS Trusts, national and regional NHS bodies, Special
Health Authorities, Clinical Commissioning Groups and Commissioning Support Units.
From there we made our way to every social media channel referenced by these
bodies. We combined this with Google searches and further background research.
There are an estimated 15 million Twitter users in the NHS alone. We used a unique
and pioneering NHS Social Media analysis tool - Find SoMeone in Health - to cut
through those millions of Twitter accounts, drill down, identify and analyse the followers
and activity of just 238,927 individuals or organisations with the highest concentration
of interest and engagement with the main national UK NHS and health-related social
media accounts.
By deploying a series of layered algorithms, intelligent filters and pattern analyses,
rooted in more than two decades of deep understanding and presence in the UK NHS
and health and social care sectors, we were able to focus relentlessly on those social
media accounts of individuals and organisations with the greatest interest and
influence in the NHS and health and care sectors across a range of factors and
indices. This has enabled us to build up an unprecedented data store and capability
for targeted searches and analyses.
To the best of our knowledge, no organisation or company in the
world has carried out such comprehensive investigation or has
access to such breadth or sophistication of specialist data and
analysis.
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
4
PASSIONATE PRACTITIONERS
We’re not just NHS social media analysts. We’re passionate hands-on practitioners
ourselves. Over the past five years, we’ve stood shoulder to shoulder with - and
worked alongside - some of the most successful and most determined NHS SoMe
pioneers.
We are particularly proud to have been the Social Media Lead for NHS Change Day in
both 2013 and 2014, the largest social movement and grassroots improvement
initiative in the history of the NHS, described by The Guardian as “spread almost
entirely through social media…certainly a mass movement…genuinely a bottom-up
movement [which] has already empowered and liberated many NHS staff, encouraging
them to speak out publicly, using Twitter and other social media to express
themselves.”
Building on NHS Change Day, the remarkable team of staff, regional ‘NHS Hubbies’
and volunteers behind it are now building NHS Change Day 2015 plus the School for
Health and Care Radicals - of which we’re proud to be an accredited Change Agent.
We are also proud to have worked with the team developing and delivering NHS
Citizen.
And we’ve designed or delivered Social Media strategies for NHS Acute Trusts,
Community Trusts, NHS Leadership Organisations and membership organisations,
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
5
MOVING ‘BEYOND THE BRINK’
To help the NHS to move beyond the brink, it needs support from - and recognition for
- people and hands-on practitioners who:
• understand social media, web and mobile technology and techniques;
• know how to deploy and apply social media in real life, with real people,
working on the sometimes brutal reality of the NHS frontline;
• prefer using everyday language and simple concepts rather than jargon and
theory;
• fully understand and are passionate and experienced about the NHS in policy,
operational and practical terms;
• have hard-bitten experience of frontline delivery and leadership of NHS care;
and
• have a proven track record in providing or benefiting from
compassionate NHS care, service improvement, stakeholder and
staff engagement and programme delivery.
These people aren’t from another planet. And despite the popular
stereotype, they’re not all twenty-something nerds with a penchant for
gadgets - although admittedly at least some of them are.
Instead they are staff and ordinary people including families and carers
doing extraordinary things. They can be found in the corridors, offices,
wards, canteens, ambulances, visiting rooms and community locations of the
NHS. And they can be found amongst health-related charities, voluntary
groups, social movements, campaigns and grassroots initiatives.
To them all we offer this Report as our further contribution to the NHS Social
Media stealth revolution.
We are also grateful to NHS Providers for their support for this research and
report.
We’ll continue to see them all out there in social media space. And we invite
everyone else to join us there.
Joe McCrea
Managing Director, J B McCrea Ltd
@jbmccrea
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
6
How widespread is social media as an
official activity across the NHS?
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
7
How widespread is social media as an official activity across the NHS?
The idea for this Report began to germinate in late 2013 whilst we were working as the
Social Media Lead for NHS Change Day. And like many ideas, it began with a struggle
to find an answer to a very simple question. That question was “How widespread is
social media in the NHS in an official capacity and who exactly is using what?”
By ‘official capacity’ we mean “the main social media channels and identities owned
and operated in an official capacity by NHS organisations as catalogued by the Health
and Social Care Information Centre”
Finding the answer to this apparently simple question proved to be far more difficult
than we could have imagined.
We began by approaching a variety of social media practitioners across the NHS to
see if they had any comprehensive and exhaustive analysis, lists or directories. We
discovered that none existed.
We tried a range of national NHS bodies, including NHS England and the Department
of Health. This included many friends and colleagues doing remarkable social media
innovations. But still we had no luck.
Next, we approached a range of commercial companies specialising in mainstream
contact databases or listings of NHS organisations, employees and activities. Again,
we found that whilst they had extensive contact details of traditional and core business
activities and roles, none had comprehensive details of social media - and certainly
none that matched social media channels to their owning organisation.
Finally, we approached commercial companies specialising in media and
communications directories and databases. Again, we drew a blank.
Gradually it dawned on us that the reason we couldn’t find on was simple. Nobody
had done the legwork to produce one. So we set out to do it ourselves. After 8
months of painstaking and often tedious research - this is what we have found.
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
8
THE DOMINATION OF TWITTER
Not surprisingly, official NHS Social Media channels use is dominated by Twitter.
Virtually every NHS organisation that uses social media as part of its corporate
communications has at least a Twitter account. This accounts for 4 out of 5 NHS
organisations.
In fact, the current most popular pattern of social media use by NHS
organisations is to use Twitter alone.
This is followed in popularity by a combination use of Twitter,
Facebook and YouTube.
Perhaps surprisingly, LinkedIn is not used in a widespread official
capacity by NHS organisation corporately - by this, we mean that only
just under 3 per cent of NHS organisations advertise an official
corporate LinkedIn presence on their main website. (There could be
less high profile use of LinkedIn by sections of organisations, e.g.
Human Resources. And, of course, thousands of individuals working
in the NHS will have their own individual LinkedIn page).
THE VIRTUAL QUADROPOLY OF THE ‘BIG FOUR’
Social Media channels corporate use is almost entirely dominated by
Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn. We were able to find just
under 7 per cent of NHS Organisations using Social Media channels
outside this ‘Big Four’ - mainly Pinterest, Vimeo or Flickr.
We did not, as part of this research, carry out an exhaustive analysis
of the frequency or quality of social media use corporately by NHS
Organisations, but we observed wide variations in use in the course
of our research - including examples of YouTube channels holding
just a single video uploaded over a year ago.
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
9
ALL LEVELS OF ACTIVITY ACROSS ALL TYPES OF NHS
ORGANISATION
One of the strengths of NHS Providers is the comprehensive base of its membership
across all types of NHS Foundation Trust and Trust - acute community, ambulance and
mental health trusts. NHS Social Media is used by all types of these organisations
and with all levels of activity.
Take, for example, just the NHS organisations who make up the NHS Providers Board.
They include all of these types of organisation and, between them, have almost 50,000
Twitter followers on their primary official pages.
They range from UCLH with 6,792 followers and 3,810 tweets, Oxford Health with
6,534 members and 2,701 tweets and South Central Ambulance Service with 6,389
followers and 3,090 tweets to Sunderland Eye Hospital with 90 followers and 143
tweets and Birmingham Women’s Hospital with 60 followers and 16 tweets.
Most NHS organisations have one official Twitter account. Some have multiple. For
example, NHS Providers Board Member Gloucestershire Care Services NHS Trust
maintains separate Twitter accounts for its corporate presence, Chief Executive and
Director of Nursing. An area for future research will be to look at the number of semi
and unofficial accounts in each organisation.
The important point is not that all NHS organisations have huge numbers of followers
or have massive levels of tweeting or other social media activity. It is that from large to
small, old hands to newbies, NHS organisations are rising to the social media
challenge at widely different pace and with widely different capability.
The NHS Providers Board is therefore a truly representative microcosm of the NHS
itself. It is ideally placed to empathise with, understand and support the NHS in all its
levels of social media activity, maturity and footprint.
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
10
NHS ORGANISATIONAL TWITTER ACCOUNTS - THE TOP 50
We have analysed all of the Twitter accounts used by NHS Organisations and ranked
them using a combination of their numbers of followers and numbers of tweets.
Combining these two factors gives us a “Followers/Statuses Index” for each
organisation.
Here are the top 50 NHS Organisational Twitter Accounts.
In the top spot is Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation
Trust - @GreatOrmondSt
4 of the top 10 are Ambulance Trusts
•
London Ambulance Service
•
West Midlands Ambulance Service
•
North West Ambulance Service
•
East of England Ambulance Service
There is a wide mix of types of NHS organisation, including NHS Foundation Trusts,
NHS Trusts, Community Healthcare Trusts, Ambulance Trusts, CCGs and national
organisations.
It is clear that social media is an activity embraced by the whole range of NHS
Providers membership.
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
11
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
12
Who are the stealth revolutionaries of
social media across the NHS?
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
13
Who are the stealth revolutionaries of social media across the NHS?
We are well aware that some of the most pioneering and effective use of NHS Social
Media takes place well away from these official channels of the main national bodies,
in myriad tweet chats, campaigns, conversations, blogs and interactions.
So, a second question to which we wanted to find an answer was also very simple.
“Who are the stealth revolutionaries of social media across the NHS?
The deep-dive data-analysis tool underpinning Find SoMeone in Health enables us to
produce any number of lists and rankings from the 238,927 NHS social media
aficionados across an infinite range of combinations and factors:
•
For national bodies, this could be those following and/or followed on Twitter by a
range of national accounts;
•
For professional bodies, it could be those following and/or followed by a
combination of accounts from main NHS organisations or selected providers,
combined with royal colleges, regulators and/or relevant professional publications;
•
For individual NHS providers or suppliers, it could be the accounts of
organisations and/or individuals following and/or followed by the most directly
relevant national NHS organisations and regulators, combined with their regional
or local equivalents plus specific local campaigns, media outlets and decisionmaking bodies (e.g. ‘Save the local hospital’ + local radio and TV stations + local
Healthwatch + local councils and MPs)
•
For campaigns or charities, it could be those following and/or followed by a
combination of specialist publications, relevant charities or national
representatives, healthcare providers or suppliers, regulators, influencers and
decision-making bodies.
As a demonstration, for this Report, we have chosen just 5 examples. We have
specifically excluded NHS Providers from this analysis because they are supporting
the research:
THE NATIONAL ‘FOLLOWED’
The top 25 Twitter accounts (ranked by Twitter followers/tweet index) followed by all of
these national NHS Twitter accounts:
•
@theKingsFund
•
@HSJnews
•
@NHSEngland
•
@NursingTimes
•
@nhsconfed
THE NHS ‘BOAT-ROCKERS’
Inspired by the concept of ‘NHS boat-rockers’ popularised by @helenbevan and
@NHSChangeDay, the top 50 Twitter accounts (ranked by Twitter followers/tweet
index) following all of the following NHS Twitter accounts:
•
@NHSChangeDay
•
@Grangerkate
•
@anniecoops
•
@helenbevan
•
@wenurses
THE NHS NEWS JUNKIES
The top 50 Twitter accounts (ranked by Twitter followers/tweet index following all of
these Twitter accounts:
•
@HSJnews
•
@roylilley
•
@BMAnews
•
@pulsetoday
•
@NursingTimes
THE NHS POLICY WONKS
THE NATIONAL ‘FOLLOWERS’
The top 50 Twitter accounts (ranked by Twitter followers/tweet index) following all of
these national NHS Twitter accounts:
•
@DHgovuk
•
@HSJnews
•
@NHSEngland
•
@CareQualityComm
•
@nhsconfed
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
The top 50 Twitter accounts (ranked by Twitter followers/tweet index) following all of
these Twitter accounts
•
@theKingsFund
•
@2020health
•
@NuffieldTrust
•
@IPPR
•
@SMFthinktank
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
14
The National ‘Followers’
The first group we considered were those who follow the Twitter accounts of a
range of national organisations setting and overseeing national NHS policy,
reporting on the health service, regulating and representing it. With their
agreement, we deliberately chose not to include NHS Providers in this list, so as
not to introduce unintended bias into our findings:
•
@theKIngsFund
•
@HSJnews
•
@NHSEngland
•
@CareQualityCommission
•
@nhsconfed
At each stage of our filtering, we were able to hone in on the most assiduous
followers by only including those who followed all of these Twitter accounts, not
just some of them.
We then ranked the resulting filtered 4,528 Twitter accounts by their own number
of followers and their own number of status updates.
In the top spot was the comms team for @MINDCharity .
There were some amongst the top 50 of this group that could readily have been
predicted, for example:
•
@NHSLeadership
•
@MidwivesRCM
•
@ProfSteveField
•
@profchrisham
•
@rcgp
But there were also some surprises and some less well known stealth
revolutionaries in the top 50, for example:
•
@claireOT - occupational therapist
•
@sagefemmeSB - midwife
•
@CombatStress - veterans mental health charity
•
@pauljebb1 - asst director of nursing
•
@BobHudson - public policy academic
The full Top 50 national NHS ‘Followers’ is overleaf.
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
15
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
16
The National ‘Followed’
Of course, Twitter is not just a matter of who people choose to follow - it’s also a matter
of who is followed by others. So we also wanted to have a look at those Twitter
accounts which are followed by national NHS and health-related organisations, across
a spread of decision makers, regulators and media. To do this, we chose to look at
those Twitter accounts followed by all of the following:
•
@theKIngsFund
•
@HSJnews
•
@NHSEngland
•
@CareQualityComm
•
@nhsconfed
There were only 50 such accounts, which shows that some of the best known national
Twitter accounts concentrate more on providing content for others to follow rather than
follow in their own right. We ranked these 50 Twitter accounts by their own number of
followers and their own number of status updates.
In the top spot was the news team for @bbchealth
There were some amongst the top 25 of this group that could readily have been
predicted, for example:
•
@NHSChoices
•
@macmillan cancer
•
@dhgovuk
•
@patientopinion
•
@Jeremy_Hunt
But there were also some surprises and some less well known stealth revolutionaries
in the top 25, for example:
•
@SalfordCCG
•
@MHS_Tweets - the Mental Health Foundation
•
@Timeto Change - programme to end mental health discrimination
The Top 25 is overleaf.
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
17
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
18
The NHS ‘Boat-Rockers’
Some of the most inspiring, successful and groundbreaking uses of NHS Social Media
in recent times have come courtesy of @helenbevan, @jackielynton and
@NHSChangeDay
The Guardian described NHS Change Day 2014 as “an idea that began with NHS
workers frustrated about the system's lethargy and resistance to change. It spread
almost entirely through social media. And it's certainly a mass movement.” From its
inception, the conscious purpose of NHS Change Day was to apply social movement
thinking and practices - including through social media - to bring about positive change
across the NHS. In doing so, it created connections between thousands of likeminded individuals, attracted by its energy and its support for NHS ‘boat-rockers’.
Inspired by the concept of ‘NHS boat-rockers’, we identified those Twitter accounts
following all of the following NHS Twitter accounts of examples of boat-rockers:
•
@NHSChangeDay
•
@Grangerkate
•
@anniecoops
•
@helenbevan
•
@wenurses
We then ranked the resulting filtered 211 Twitter accounts by their own number of
followers and their own number of status updates.
The Top 50 is overleaf.
There were some amongst the top 50 of this group that could readily have been
predicted, for example:
•
@NHSLeadership
•
@drphilhammond
•
@curetheNHS
•
@JaneCummings
But we were struck by just how many of these Boat-Rockers were far beyond the
‘usual suspects’ and simply unknown grassroots individuals, whose passion for change
in the NHS clearly leads them to follow similar figures, campaigns and people - proof if
any was needed of the true stealth nature of the NHS social media revolution.
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
19
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
20
The NHS News Junkies
News, comment, debate and events drive social media. For millions of people, Twitter
is the first place they see latest announcements, breaking news or up to the minute
reporting. Increasingly, news outlets and journalists are using social media as one of
their most important sources for research, contacts and intelligence.
Social Media also gives journalists and editors a direct line to frontline NHS leaders,
staff, charities and campaigners - and vice-versa. So we wanted to see who are the
people who are using social media the most to follow NHS related news, reporters and
commentators.
To do this, we analysed the Twitter accounts (ranked by Twitter followers/tweet index)
following all of these Twitter accounts:
•
@NursingTimes
•
@HSJnews
•
@roylilley
•
@pulsetoday
•
@BMANews
We then ranked the resulting filtered 1,286 Twitter accounts by their own number of
followers and their own number of status updates.
In the top spot was the Channel 4 news anchor @krishgm
There were some amongst the top 50 of this group that could readily have been
predicted, for example:
•
@bmj_latest
•
@TheKingsFund
•
@NHSLeadership
•
@NHSChoices
•
@NICEcommes
But there were also some surprises and some less well known stealth revolutionaries
in the top 50, for example:
•
@ManchesterCCGs
•
@jrt_uk - the Joseph Rowntree Foundation
•
@amcunningham - clinical lecturer at Cardiff University
The Top 50 is overleaf.
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
21
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
22
The NHS ‘Policy Wonks’
Few areas of public policy attract as much attention as the NHS, health and social
care. Consistently in the top priorities of public concern, accounting for over £120bn of
public money, employing over 1.3 million people and touching the lives of every citizen
in the UK, this should come as no surprise.
As the NHS Constitution puts it - “the NHS belongs to us all”
But this does not mean that every citizen is interested in the intricacies of NHS policymaking. Nor does it mean that those interested in NHS policy apply a broader public
policy perspective to their deliberations and interests. In fact, the NHS ‘policy wonk’
community can sometimes feel like a sub-culture within a sub-culture.
To demonstrate this, we analysed the Twitter accounts (ranked by Twitter followers/
tweet index) following all of these Twitter accounts:
•
@theKingsFund
•
@IPPR
•
@Nuffield Trust
•
@SMFthinktank
•
@2020health
Surprisingly there were only 95 such Twitter accounts We then ranked the resulting
filtered accounts by their own number of followers and their own number of status
updates.
In the top spot was the Joseph Rowntree Foundation @jrf_uk
There were some amongst the top 50 of this group that could readily have been
predicted, for example:
•
@LSEpoliticsblog
•
@prospectUK
•
@nhsconfed
•
@ESRC
But there were also some surprises and some less well known stealth revolutionaries
in the top 50, for example:
•
@Quinonostante - Active Mental Health /Disability Campaigner
•
@helenmilner - CEO Tinder Foundation
•
@tianran - Guardian writer
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
23
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
24
Moving beyond the brink - the power of
SMILE
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
25
Moving beyond the brink - the power of SMILE
If Social Media is to move beyond the brink, it can no longer be an optional add-on for
NHS organisations or something that takes place in isolation from other core business
and improvement activities. To succeed, it needs to be carefully designed,
mainstreamed and integrated with Improvement, Listening and Engagement. And it
needs to be designed with mobile in mind.
THE THREE CHALLENGES FOR SUCCESSFUL NHS SOCIAL MEDIA
We believe there are three key challenges that need to be addressed to support NHS
frontline organisations and enable them to successfully implement NHS Social Media
to ensure it delivers tangible mainstream value:
• The challenge of Integration - how to integrate Social Media with frontline
organisations’ strategic objectives, core business processes and operations;
• The challenge of Engagement - how to ensure NHS organisations’ Social
Media strategy secures support and involvement from the Boardroom,
frontline staff, patients and their families and stakeholders - and delivers
tangible results and real value to all of them;
• The challenge of Focus - how to ensure each NHS Organisation’s Social
Media footprint, activities and content are tightly focussed and centred on
those key individuals and organisations that are most directly and most
distinctly relevant to them.
The tools and approaches we developed and deployed are greatly appreciated by our
NHS customers.
We are grateful for them allowing us to make available in this Report some of the
analysis and insights we developed with them through the use of one or more of these
tools. In particular, our thanks go to:
• Helen Bevan and Jackie Lynton, NHSIQ Horizons Team;
• Nick Samuels, Director of Communications, NHS Providers;
• Tracey Allen, Chief Executive, Derbyshire Community Health Services NHS
Trust;
• Katrina Percy, Chief Executive, Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust;
• Karen James, Chief Executive, Tameside Hospital NHS Foundation Trust;
• James Marcus, Social Media Lead, NHS Leadership Academy;
APPROACHES TO MEET THE CHALLENGES
Our experience of implementing NHS Social Media in the real world on the frontline
has taught us some crucial lessons and revealed significant weaknesses and gaps in
existing tools and techniques available to strategists and practitioners seeking to make
a reality of social media in the NHS.
Rather than accept second-best for either ourselves or our clients, we set about
developing a set of unique tools and approaches that would enable us to make a
success of our NHS social media delivery.
To address the challenges of Integration and Engagement we developed the Social
Media Capability Assessment.
To address the challenge of Focus, we developed a revolutionary product - the ‘Find
SoMeOne in Health’ solution.
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
26
Social Media Capability Assessment
The Social Media Capability Assessment is a powerful analysis and benchmarking
solution that enables NHS organisations objectively to assess their current social
media capability, set goals for improvement and develop and manage implementation
of a tightly outcomes-focussed Improvement Actions Plan.
Unlike other social media tracking tools, it crucially assesses not just Social Media
Capability in isolation, but also how well social media is embedded in, integrated with
and supported by the wider Organisation and its core business and leadership
strategies, functions and processes.
Each Dimension contains five indicators (making 20 indicators in all) built upon an
objective description of an organisation at increasing levels of capability - with an
underlying algorithm to apply a maturity score for the organisation for each indicator at
each level of capability.
•
None/non-existent
•
Sub-optimal
•
Adequate
•
Reasonable
•
Good
•
Optimal
These factors combine to produced a powerful Maturity Model, which describes an
‘ideal-type’ oganisation at various stages of development of social media, purely in
business outcome and behaviours, and then invites users to benchmark their own
organisation against the ‘ideal type’.
The assessment is produced through an online survey, whereby as many individuals
as desired score their own organisation objectively against the ‘ideal-type’. The
combination of these scores produce an organisation-wide assessment, but each
individual can also receive the results of their own individual scorings.
It not only allows the organisation to understand its current state of maturity and
capability. It also allows the organisation to glimpse where it might get to across all
areas of activity and develop a tightly focussed Improvement Plan to enable it to move
towards the ideal.
OBJECTIVE ASSESSMENT ACROSS FOUR DIMENSIONS
The tool objectively assesses an organisation’s current social media capability across
four Dimensions:
•
Channels and Communities
•
Content
•
Leadership and Policy
•
Organisation and Culture
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
Example of an Indicator page, showing current level, aim, commentary and
actions
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
27
The combination of all 20 Indicators in turn produce an overall Organisational
Maturity Assessment according to the following states:
• Non-participant
• Very low maturity
• Low maturity
• Medium maturity
• High maturity
• Exemplar
The Maturity Assessment can be used both as an initial
benchmark and as a tracking tool to reassess capability after
the implementation of agreed improvement actions.
In the example opposite, for example, an organisation that
had been initially assessed as being at Low Maturity
reassessed itself after a 12-month implementation of agreed
improvement actions and was able to confirm its
transformation to an Exemplar organisation.
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
28
WHAT IS THE CURRENT INTEGRATED CAPABILITY LEVEL OF NHS
SOCIAL MEDIA?
We have combined Social Media Capability Assessments completed by over 400
individuals working at all levels over more than 30 NHS organisations, including
national leadership organisations and agencies, Acute Trusts and
Community Trusts. We believe this gives an unprecedented
objective snapshot of the current integrated capability levels of
NHS Social Media.
This shows that overall that NHS is at a state of Low Maturity in
its use of Social Media.
It does not rate itself as “Good” or “Optimal” in any of the maturity
indicators.
It is at a reasonable state in:
•
the degree to which it uses social media beyond mere
‘Broadcasting’ activities;
•
its understanding of the potential for mobile channels;
•
its understanding of intellectual and social capital;
•
the degree to which it reviews its content;
•
the degree to which Boards are beginning to get engaged;
•
the degree to which the wider organisation is beginning to
get engaged.
It is no more than adequate in:
•
its involvement in others’ channels and communities;
•
its understanding of the views of its stakeholders;
•
its breadth of use of social media channels;
•
the range of content formats it uses across social media;
•
the degree to which it re-uses existing material in its social
media channels’
•
the degree to which it co-creates content across social
media;
•
the degree to which mainstream leaders are embracing
social media;
•
the degree to which social media is integrated with
Improvement, Listening and Engagement;
•
the degree to which social media is consciously and actively
planned;
•
the degree to which social media is aligned with the organisation’s strategic
objectives;
•
the degree to which the Customer/Service User voice is understood;
•
the degree to which social media use is performance managed;
•
the degree to which social media roles and skills are understood and developed;
•
the degree to which social media actively contributes to Service Improvement.
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
29
"Find SoMeOne in Health”
One of the most serious challenges facing NHS organisations seeking to develop and
maximise their social media presences is the need to identify the social media
accounts of those key individuals and organisations that are most directly and most
distinctly relevant to them, and then identifying amongst the tens of thousands of
followers of these accounts only those that are also relevant to the NHS Organisation
itself.
There are an estimated 15 million active Twitter users in the UK alone. The UK total
for Facebook is 24 million and for LinkedIn it is 10 million. Amongst the newer
arrivals, UK Pinterest users have increased 10-fold from 200,000 to over 2 million
between 2012 and 2013.
This challenge can often seem unsurmountable and, as a result, many NHS
organisations can find themselves communicating and engaging with hundreds if not
thousands of people who have no interest in them, whilst missing many people and
organisations who are most important to them.
A one-off exercise might involve an individual in the organisation doing a single
laborious manual desk research exercise to find out one-by-one all the names of the
followers of a selected number of Twitter accounts, rank them by their own followers
and then manually follow each of them. Even where the results of this laborious
exercise yield initial valuable results, they are out of date before they are even
completed.
There are scores of online solutions that will provide generic social media statistics
and metrics that will purport to aid social media development and assessment. But
these statistics and metrics can be unfocussed in nature and unintelligent about the
particular needs and dynamics of NHS organisations and their specific local
stakeholders and specific local context. Often they can simply end up being
measurement for measurement’s sake, for example “We can compare you with Barack
Obama”
In the absence of anything better, there is little wrong with adopting any of these
approaches either in isolation or as a whole. This remains the case even given that
these approaches are blunt, relatively unfocussed and time consuming. Until now,
they have been the most adopted simply because there hasn’t been a better way. It’s
just that they’re not very good at the job.
ATTEMPTING TO FIND NEEDLES IN HAYSTACKS
A traditional approach to this problem is simply to establish a Twitter or other social
media account, follow a small number of important national NHS organisations and
hope they follow back to begin to build a social media profile. Often this fails because
the main accounts of many of these large national organisations tend not to follow as
many people as follow them. The national organisations also, by their very nature, will
be followed by thousands of people and organisations who have no connection or
interest with the specific NHS provider, region or services.
This is often combined with a generic publicity drive through traditional
communications channels to make people aware that the organisation has created
new social media channels, in the hope and expectation that they will follow or
subscribe. This is also sub-optimal, simply because by their very nature, many social
media users increasingly tend not to use traditional communications channels to
receive information and updates. It is a classic Catch-22 situation.
Example of meaningless comparisons: “We can compare you with Barack Obama”
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
30
A REVOLUTIONARY SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM
“Find SoMeOne in Health” is a revolutionary product invented and developed by J B
McCrea Ltd to produce the findings and analysis in this Report. In developing the
product, we believe we have also built a solution that addresses this key need.
The solution is built on an unprecedented and unique ‘big NHS social media data’
repository and analyser that enabled us to conduct searches, reports and comparative
analyses of specific key NHS and healthcare targets’ social media presences,
followers, activities and subscribers.
It solves the problem of finding the needles in haystacks by deploying a series of
layered algorithms, intelligent filters and pattern analyses, rooted in more than two
decades of deep understanding and presence in the UK NHS and health and social
care sectors, to focus relentlessly on those social media accounts of individuals and
organisations with the greatest interest and influence in the NHS and health and care
sectors.
The algorithms, filters and pattern analyses continually interact with each other and
intelligently inform each other to go beyond the limitations of one-off, one-search
results. For example, rather than simply finding the direct followers of one isolated
NHS social media account, they cross-reference across multiple accounts, across
followers of followers of followers, and including key phrase searching in a continual
refining and deep-mining process.
The solution has replaced one-off manual processes through continual, automatic and
preconfigured cloud based operations which continually search, confirm, adjust and
refine the insights into key social media practitioners and accounts of maximum
relevance and usefulness to the NHS, health and social care sectors.
The underlying data warehouse underpinning this product currently holds over 238,000
Twitter accounts of those with the most direct interest in healthcare and healthcarerelated topics and organisations, with Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn coming onstream during 2015.
Reports and analyses on the data held within it can be provided to through a series of
means - Excel spreadsheets, Powerpoint presentations, Word or PDF documents or
even read-only CD-ROM. In the near future, we propose to deploy web and mobile
interfaces to enable NHS organisations to access and interrogate the underlying data
warehouse directly and in real time.
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
A revolutionary new product
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
31
An example of how the mobile interface might look is provided
opposite. This shows how a user could be able to:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Register and create their own ‘SoMe in Health’ account
Access NHS-wide analyses and breaking news from key
NHS social media accounts
Search for local or topic-specific NHS organisations with
social media accounts - either by typing in a specific
location or topic or using GPS to determine current location
Populate, update and manage their own Home Page, letting
other users see details of their social media accounts;
Compare their own social media footprint and performance
with other similar NHS organisations or individuals, local
organisations and users, topic-specific organisations or
customisable specific searches
Send messages and content to pre-configured and
customisable groups of social media users and accounts
Set up notifications and alerts to be informed in real time
when their organisation or topics of major interest to them
are referenced on social media.
If you would like to be kept informed about the
future development of the Find SoMe in Health
solution, including the web and mobile interface,
send an e-mail to [email protected] with
the title “Keep me informed about Find SoMe
One in Health”
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
32
What lies beyond the brink?
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
33
What lies ‘beyond the brink’?
This Report has set out our firm belief - based on years of frontline delivery - that NHS
Social Media lies at the brink of something special.
This beggars the question - what lies beyond the brink?
BEYOND THE BRINK FOR OFFICIAL CHANNELS
Based on the Maturity Model underpinning our Social Media Capability Assessment,
we believe that in the not too distant future, the following vision is within the grasp of
those NHS organisations who are willing and brave enough to go beyond the brink.
On Channels and Communities:
• The organisation has a strong reputation as an exemplar of its use of core and
extended Social Media channels. These channels lie at the heart of the
organisation's day to day interaction and engagement with its stakeholders and
users
• The organisation actively supports and encourages environments and activities
for and by its staff, service users and stakeholders across a wide range of
Social Media. A full range of Broadcasting, Listening and Communitarian
activities are deployed and actively encouraged across and beyond the
organisation. This includes activities initiated and owned on a day-to-day basis
independently of the organisation itself, which are used systematically to inform
the organisation's strategies, policies and outcomes
• The organisation is publicly recognised as a thought and practice leader in the
use of social media. It is heavily involved in other organisations' channels and
communities, and a constant source of reference and recommendation in
these channels and communities. Activity and involvement in other channels
and communities is explicitly promoted and rewarded across the organisation
• The organisation regularly reviews and updates its stakeholders and their
followers and their social media presences to ensure maximum coverage and
efficacy of its relationships
• The organisation continually reviews, refines and improves its core business
processes, interactions between mobile and social media capabilities.
On Content:
• Content is continually reviewed, archived or updated as circumstances
require or new material is produced. Where material has been archived, old
versions are kept for reference purposes. All users are proactively alerted
when new material is available or when existing material is updated or
archived
• Traditional material is used within a full range of Social Media as one of a
number of foundations to stimulate conversations, debate, amendment and
development of ideas amongst and between stakeholders, users and the
organisation itself
• The full range of audio, video and interactive formats and capabilities are
exploited to the full
• Social Media is a highly regarded and valued capability for dynamic social
content creation within and across communities of staff, stakeholders and
users and between the organisation and its stakeholder and user
communities - and with indirect as well as direct participation by the
organisation itself
• The organisation fully embraces the concept and practice of development of
intellectual and social capital to inform and shape its insights, strategies and
operations.
What lies beyond the brink?
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
34
On Leadership and Policy:
• All members of the Board and senior management are active users of
Social Media. Outputs and insights from Social Media are reviewed
regularly and systematically at Board and senior management level or are a
standing item on team meetings. Their outputs and insights are used
proactively to inform the organisation's core strategies, policies and
stakeholder and customer relations and engagement
• Social Media is a core tool and approach whereby the organisation engages
with - and learns from - its stakeholder and user communities. The insights
gleaned from Social Media are actively and systematically used at all levels
of the organisation up to and including the Board to inform their future
strategic aims and goals
• The promotion, support and use of social media for proactive engagement
with stakeholders and users is a high profile inclusion in management and
leadership responsibilities. This includes providing support, space and
training for its use by teams for which leaders are responsible. This
leadership responsibility is specifically included in performance appraisal
and review. Results are published and made available across the
organisation
• Social Media augments and integrates Communications, Engagement,
Listening and Improvement
• There is a full Social Media Improvement Plan that has been operating for a
significant period of time, is kept under constant review and amended or
augmented as new opportunities and needs arise from within the
organisation or amongst its stakeholder and user community. It covers all 4
areas of Channels, Content, Leadership and Organisation
•
•
appraisal and review. Results are published and made available across the
organisation. Targets for increasing quality and value of use are explicitly
set, monitored and managed at organisation, directorate, manager and
individual levels. A Golden Thread approach (or equivalent) explicitly
monitors and manages the linkages between each level of review
Social Media is a highly valued core capability used by the organisation
throughout the end-to-end Service Improvement Cycle. It is one of the main
functions whereby the whole organisation understands stakeholder and user
perceptions, insights and views. A clear thread can be seen between
engagement via Social Media and Service improvement, development and
innovation.
Understanding The Voice of the User through Social Media is a well
understood priority for the organisation and is actively pursued. The
insights gleaned from the Voice of the Customer/User are actively and
systematically used at all levels of the organisation up to and including the
Board to inform their future strategic aims and goals.
We think this is a vision and destination which would make any NHS organisation
proud.
On Organisation and Culture:
• All parts of the organisation and the majority of individuals are fully and
actively engaged across a wide variety of internal and external Social Media
channels relevant to their function or area of activity. Their reputation and
activity in these channels enhances their own knowledge, their specific
reputation and the external reputation overall of the organisation. The
organisation has a reputation for being a 'thought and practice leader' in
engagement through Social Media
• Social Media roles and skills are recognised and promoted across the
organisation as a core leadership and engagement capability. Social Media
goes far beyond 'communications' functions to be included within the roles
and skills expected in good practice programme and project management,
strategy and policy development, leadership and stakeholder engagement.
Training and personal development is encouraged, expected and rewarded
• The promotion, support and use of social media is a high profile inclusion in
performance management, monitoring and appraisal, including performance
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
35
THE PERMANENT REVOLUTION - FROM BROADCASTERS TO
COMMUNITARIANS
We have already shown that a large part of innovation and energy driving the NHS
Social Media stealth revolution has taken place well away from official channels
managed and operated centrally by NHS organisations. We see no reason why this
trend should abate. In fact, we think it will increase.
In doing so, we believe it will usher in a radical change of approach in the way the
NHS interacts and engages with its users, staff, stakeholders, patients and their
families.
We call this change of approach one of moving from being Broadcasters to
Communitarians.
Practitioners of a Broadcaster approach typically see social media as simply another
set of communications channels to continue traditional habits and behaviours of
announcing things or speaking at people. They typically deploy tried and trusted
methods to pursue conventional PR and marketing goals of building brand and
organisational presence, mainly through one-way communication to the media,
members or member organisations, stakeholders or external bodies, customers or
service users. The only difference that social media provides is a limited range of
alternative broadcast mechanisms to the traditional tools and techniques of one-way
press releases, media briefings, round-robin e-mails or mail-merged campaign
literature and collateral.
Under a Communitarian approach, the widest possible range of social media channels
and tools - including mobile channels - are deployed to underpin engagement, change
and improvement programmes built upon a rich mix of engaging, listening, responding,
supporting, facilitating and participating in communities of individuals and
organisations.
Rather than using social media simply to tell staff, patients and the wider world what
NHS organisations are doing centrally and what they are thinking, a communitarian
approach uses social media to give frontline staff, carers, patients and families THEIR
voice and THEIR spaces to interact with each other and inform each other. And a very
powerful voice it can prove to be.
And, of course, social media uniquely provides an economical and easy way to share
the richest quality and depth material and content. An iPhone or Android device
becomes a movie camera. A tablet becomes a novel or journal. A webcam becomes a
live TV station. All of them provide spaces to interact, mutually discover and share.
From this….
A half-way house stage between the Broadcaster and Communitarian approach might
see the deployment of a series of Listening capabilities and programmes. This
involves mainly inviting stakeholders and service users to submit responses and
comments, ratings or observations on the organisation and its performance and
service approaches. These responses and comments are then analysed behind
closed doors by the organisation and an improvement strategy developed to deal with
the findings.
There is nothing wrong with adopting either the Broadcaster or particularly the
Listening approach. In many contexts, it might be precisely the best course of action
for an NHS body to adopt, delivering exactly what the organisation needs at a specific
time or within its specific immediate challenge or context.
But neither approach will work in the long term if the goal is to promote and sustain a
genuine social culture. This is where a Communitarian approach is needed to deliver
truly groundbreaking results.
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
…..to this
! of !42
36
MOBILISING THE SOCIAL CAPITALISTS
One of the most exciting insights that our involvement with NHS Social Media has
generated for us is an emerging understanding of the difference between what we term
‘social capitalists’ vs traditional venture capitalists.
The central challenge facing the NHS is how to survive and prosper in the “age of
austerity”. Organisations, leaders, politicians and decision-makers tend to concentrate
on revenue and capital budgets in their most traditional forms. We believe they are
under-appreciating and under- exploiting one of the richest seams of capital
investment open to the NHS – that is the huge amount of latent social capital
possessed by the million-plus workforce, stakeholders, service users and their families
We contend that Social Media is uniquely placed to enable the NHS to unlock and
deploy huge reservoirs of social capital across the NHS and beyond.
What is social capital?
Oxford Dictionaries define social capital as “the networks of relationships among
people who live and work in a particular society, enabling that society to function
effectively.”
The World Bank’s extensive programme on Social Capital defines Social Capital as
“the norms and networks that enable collective action. It encompasses institutions,
relationships, and customs that shape the quality and quantity of a society's social
interactions…Social capital, when enhanced in a positive manner, can improve project
effectiveness and sustainability by building the community’s capacity to work together
to address their common needs, fostering greater inclusion and cohesion, and
increasing transparency and accountability.”
3.
Collective action and cooperation
The provision of many services requires collective action by a group of individuals. The
purposes of collective action may differ widely across communities. In some places,
collective action consists primarily of community-organised activities for building and
maintaining infrastructure and for providing related public services. In other places,
collective action is important for achieving improved governance and accountability,
and used for example to lobby elected officials to provide more services to the
community.
4.
Social cohesion and inclusion
Social cohesion manifests in individuals who are willing and able to work together to
address common needs, overcome constraints, and consider diverse interests. They
are able to resolve differences in a civil, non-confrontational way. Inclusion promotes
equal access to opportunities, and removes both formal and informal barriers to
participation.
5.
Information and communication
Information and communication form the crux of social interactions. Downward flows of
information from the policy realm and upward flows from the local level are critical
components of the development process. Horizontal information flows strengthen
capacity by providing civil society a medium for knowledge and idea exchange. Open
dialogue fosters a sense of community, while secrecy breeds suspicion and distrust.
Enhancing the dissemination of information can break down negative social capital as
well as build trust and cohesion
The World Bank considers Social Capital can be broken down into five dimensions:
1. Groups and networks
Organisational support and network activities are crucial for bridging and linking social
capital. Engagements of people to organise themselves and mobilise resources to
solve problems of common interest are some of the outputs from groups and networks
that enhance or build upon social capital. T.
2.
Trust and solidarity
These informal and subjective elements of interpersonal behaviour shape people’s
thoughts and attitudes about interacting with others. When individuals in communities
trust each other and the institutions that operate among them, they can easier reach
agreements and conduct transactions.
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
37
How NHS Social Media can unlock NHS Social
Capital
The essence of social media in the NHS is networks of professional communities,
organisations and individuals across the NHS willing and enthusiastic to voluntarily
engage with each other, learn from each other and support each other.
There is no doubt that a strong and unifying self-identity of NHS organisations, their
staff and the general population is their sense of belonging and support for a national
organisation with associated and shared norms and values. This identification with
and support for “NHS values and principles” spreads far beyond NHS organisations
itself to the wider general public and political and administrative classes.
So the importance of social capital to the success of the NHS, across the World Bank’s
dimensions is inarguable:
• Organisational support and network activities;
• Self-organising and mobilising resources to solve problems of common
interest;
• Disseminating information and facilitating collective decision-making;
• Trust in each other and the institutions that operate among them;
• Collective action and co-operation by a group of individuals;
• Individuals who are willing and able to work together to address common
needs, overcome constraints, and consider diverse interests;
• downward flows of information from the policy realm and upward flows from the
local level.
The role of ‘Social Capitalists’
There are a number of similarities between what I call ‘social capitalists’ and venture
capitalists:
• both seek to make a capital investment to support and facilitate the growth of
‘start-up’ projects or ideas;
• both are usually external to the organisation or project owning the idea;
• both bring external expertise or support sought by the organisation or idea to
develop or maximise its potential;
• both play a background role in the project or idea, rather than a day-to-day or
operational role.
But unlike the venture capitalist, the social capitalist typically delivers non-financial
investments to the idea or project, such as:
• reassurance and endorsement;
• technical or expert advice or guidance;
• links to their professional and social contacts who may be able and willing to
provide support, encouragement or endorsement;
• links to similar projects or ideas to facilitate mutual understanding and learning;
• buddying or mentoring arrangements.
The role of Venture Capitalists
According to Wikipedia, “Venture capital (VC) is financial capital provided to earlystage, high-potential, high risk, growth start-up companies. The venture capital fund
makes money by owning equity in the companies it invests in, which usually have a
novel technology or business model in high technology industries, such as
biotechnology, IT and software. The typical venture capital investment occurs after the
seed funding round as growth funding round (also referred to as Series A round) in the
interest of generating a return through an eventual realization event, such as an IPO or
trade sale of the company.
Venture capital is invested in exchange for an equity stake in the business. As a
shareholder, the venture capitalist's return is dependent on the growth and profitability
of the business. This return is generally earned when the venture capitalist ‘exits’ by
selling its shareholdings when the business is sold to another owner.”
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
38
Of course, there are many global professional and consulting companies whose
business model is built specifically on charging for this type of advice. But in the
context of NHS Social Media – which is built on a business model of peer-to-peer
communication and support between public sector professionals, this does not have to
be the case.
The crucial difference therefore between venture capitalists and social capitalists,
particularly social capitalists in the context of the NHS is that whereas the venture
capitalist ultimately requires a financial return on their financial investment, in many
situations NHS social capitalists do not. They share ideas and enthusiasm simply
because they want to.
This means that in many cases, the only barrier to entry for an organisation or project
seeking investment from a social capitalist is identifying potential sources and making
the necessary connections. The challenge is how to facilitate these connections and
learning activity. That is where NHS social media can come to the fore.
In an Age of Austerity, we believe it is critical that
we deploy social media to the utmost to unlock
those huge reservoirs of social capital and unleash
the NHS Social Capitalists.
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
39
About NHS Providers - the association
of foundation trusts and trusts
NHS Providers is the membership organisation and
trade association for the NHS acute, ambulance,
community and mental health services that treat
patients and service users in the NHS.
We help those NHS foundation trusts and trusts to
deliver high quality, patient focussed, care by
enabling them to learn from each other, acting as
their public voice and helping shape the system in
which they operate.
•
Support - to enable our members to drive improvement through development,
support and shared learning. We run 12 different member networks that meet at
least three times a year. These range from functional networks - chairs and chief
executives, finance directors and clinical leads - to sectoral groups like community
and mental health trusts. We run an NHS TDA funded preparation programme for
aspirant trusts, three national conferences, GovernWell, the national training
programme for governors; and a range of other course and development
programmes including a very highly rated new course on leading cultural change.
Follow us on Twitter
NHS Providers
Chris Hopson
Gill Morgan
Nick Samuels
Saffron Cordery
Ben Clacy
- Chief Executive
- Chair
- Director of Communications
- Director of Policy and Strategy
- Director of Development and
Operations
- @NHSProviders
- @ChrisCEOHopson
- @MorganSagartia
- @n1cksamuels
- @Saffron_Policy
- @BenClacy
NHS Providers has 226 members – more than 94%
of all NHS foundation trusts and aspirant trusts –
who collectively account for £65 billion of annual
expenditure and employ more than 928,000 staff.
Alongside being a professional organisation, we have three strategic objectives:
•
Influence - to shape the strategic, financial, policy and regulatory system in which
our members operate. We do this by sharing the experience and expertise of our
members and arguing for their interests with ministers, civil servants, the arm’s
length bodies and parliament;
•
Voice - to champion our members’ distinctive interests in the media and within
government and the wider NHS. We are the ‘go to commentator’ for NHS provider
issues, securing more than 800 national media mentions over the last year,
including setting the agenda on financial pressures facing the sector and the key
role providers need to play in driving NHS transformation. We have an active
social media profile and produce a range of daily, weekly, fortnightly and sixmonthly publications;
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
40
About J B McCrea Ltd
With over a quarter of a century of award-winning experience and an enviable track
record of delivery and credibility with leaders, decision-makers and service providers,
we deliver results and services that make a difference.
Our NHS clients include:
•
NHS Acute Trusts
•
NHS Community Trusts
•
NHS Leadership Organisations
•
NHS national campaigns and initiatives
•
NHS commercial providers
We also have developed a unique set of products and tools unrivalled in the
marketplace, including the Social Media Capability Assessment and Find SoMeOne in
Health set out in this Report. We also have developed the Likely Outcome Tracker/
Opinion Mapper - which combines qualitative analysis with web technology to produce
a powerful opinion mapping, programme outcome tracking and presentational solution
We believe our clients words speak louder than our own. Here’s just 3 examples of
what they say:
•
More widely, we have provided advice and support in central government, local
government, education and voluntary sectors.
•
We provide a range of advice and support services, including:
•
Listening, Engagement and Improvement - We don’t just help organisations to
communicate. We teach them to listen and engage. We help them to understand
and learn more about how they perform and deliver services. And then we design
and embed solutions and processes to ensure they improve and respond through
what they’ve heard and learnt;
•
Social Media - Everyone’s talking about it. Fewer understand it. Only a minority
are using it to its full effect. We have worked with organisations, big and small, in
health, local government and private sectors, to design and implement costeffective strategies to enable them to exploit it in the most productive and efficient
way in their own specific context.
•
PR and Comms - The days when you could rely on communicating your message
simply by issuing a press release, putting an announcement on your website or
sending a generalised mailshot are long gone. Organisations need to understand
their audiences, what they require, how they consume traditional and new media,
communicate and engage with each other and how they can best engage with
them and their networks. Then they need to have the experience and capabilities
to deliver those messages and that engagement – effectively and efficiently –
across an integrated range of traditional channels plus web, digital, social media
and mobile. That requires a skillset and proven track record across all these
disciplines that combines imagination & creativity with planning and execution
across all of these channels and activities. We provide that for organisations or
train and equip their people to deliver more effectively.
•
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
“Some people have vision. Others deliver. You have the rare ability to deliver
your own vision.” - Senior civil servant and satisfied client
“As Chief Executive, I don’t just need passive advice and support. I
need concrete outcomes and demonstrable deliverables. You gave us both.” NHS Foundation Trust Chief Executive
“You didn’t just give us advice and support, you also equipped us with the tools to
enable us to get the job done ourselves” - Head of Communications and
Engagement
Words are easy. Successes are hard won. Our NEW website is now live. Crammed
full of successes, testimonials and ideas - see it here! www.jbmccrea.com
LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/pub/joe-mccrea/6/101/38
Twitter: @jbmccrea
Find us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/JBMcCreaLtd
[email protected]
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
41
Don’t miss an announcement or breaking news in Health let US bring it to you for free! - bookmark http://
jbmccrea.com/right-now-in-health
On the brink of SoMe thing special?
Find SoMeOne who makes the difference to YOU. Contact
us for your bespoke queries, data and Report from the
revolutionary Find SoMeOne Data Repository. For more
details see http://jbmccrea.com/needles-in-haystacks/
The first comprehensive analysis of Social Media in the NHS
! of !42
42