How NHS South, Central and West deepened its digital community connection

NHS South, Central and West (SCW) provides support and transformation services to health and care systems, helping them achieve the best possible outcomes for people, communities, and populations.  NHSSCW sought a way to digitalise its information and processes to increase efficiency. The organisation’s efforts to streamline its procedures using EngagementHQ resulted in NHSSCW being named a finalist for the Operational Excellence Award in the 2023 Granicus UK Digital Public Sector Awards.

SITUATION

Advancing processes with digital solutions

NHSSCW wanted to engage with patients and staff across the NHS and other health and care organisations in ways that would allow for more dialogue and opportunities to provide feedback. NHSSCW wanted to move from simple one-off surveys and manual analysis to a more advanced operational process that would garner more data and include a database to store valuable information. They considered the range of available digital tools in the market and chose to implement EngagementHQ by Granicus to support stakeholder engagement for health and care projects at all levels.

SOLUTION

Creating internal efficiencies to improve community support

NHSSCW used EngagementHQ to launch a new site: “Join the Conversation,” which has become an integral part of the organisation’s engagement toolkit. The platform supports engagement delivery for NHSSCW’s partners across the NHS and wider health and care. Operational efficiency has increased, enabling NHSSCW to have a wider digital footprint in its communities.

EngagementHQ works well on mobile devices and gives a voice to stakeholders who are short on time and balancing several priorities at once. NHSSCW’s recent survey on Child Health Vaccination Invites was done on mobile devices face-to-face with families while at parent groups and health centres. Having engagement staff onsite with mobile devices to administer a survey in real time to a parent while they care for their young child proved essential.

The platform also enables NHSSCW to collate responses from face-to-face and online methods in one project site, allowing for all analysis and data storage in one place. The built-in analytical tools allow NHSSCW to create coding frameworks within the system for free text responses, which is more efficient than previous methods in Excel, or with paper and highlighter pens. Having all data stored in one location gives NHSSCW in-depth evidence-based information that helps the NHS better understand communities’ needs while further developing relationships and improving services and support for people.

RESULTS

Streamlined processes for better engagement

Since implementing Join the Conversation in 2021, NHSSCW has had more than 112,000 visits to the online engagement platform, bringing more than 17,000 contributions to support projects across health and care. A single engagement project on Join the Conversation, Pharmacy Professional Leadership Call for Evidence, reached an audience of more than 17,700 people alone — something that would not have been possible with traditional engagement methods.

The platform has also been integral in helping NHSSCW support its Green Plan, which focuses on switching to eco-friendly alternatives and reducing paper impact. Its initial goal was to deliver at least 20 customer projects with measurable sustainability benefits by 2025; the agency delivered 64 Green Plan projects between January 2023 and January 2024.

Additionally, project turnaround times are much quicker with EngagementHQ. It takes only a matter of hours to set up a project site, including a variety of engagement tools, useful links and information, and organisational branding. The system’s ease of use also enables any staff member at NHSSCW with basic training to set up projects, freeing up core team members to work on more complex issues and work directly with community stakeholders.