NHS Lanarkshire is the third largest health board in Scotland, experiencing some of the highest A&E referrals and longest waiting times in Scotland, above the national average.
Through the difficult winter time when A&E comes under huge pressure, our campaign used social media and a new direct messaging approach to successfully engage audiences and generate the first decrease in A&E visits in four years.
Content was designed to drive audience behaviour, so hit social feeds ahead of the busiest A&E times and featured eye-catching calls to action. We produced toolkits for internal staff and external stakeholders to increase support for the campaign and help staff respond to the busiest times of the year over the Christmas and New Year holidays.
Our social content achieved over 1m impressions in the winter months and was shared over 4,300 times with the help of 30 stakeholders. Alongside the traditional media campaign, our messages received nearly 7m opportunities to see and hit every local and regional news title.
NHS Lanarkshire achieved its first decrease in A&E visits in four years (-1.24%) during the campaign period. Based on the Public Health Scotland Costs Book 2018/19, we estimated the cost saving of reducing these emergency admissions to be over £100,000.
Note: All social content was produced in-house. 162 organic posts were supported by 7 sponsored social media adverts.
This work was awarded the Best Digital and Social Media Campaign Award and was Highly Commended in the Campaign Challenges category at the 2020 PRIDE Scotland DARE Awards
