Navigating the new NHS

Whatever your perspective on the proposed reforms to the NHS, there can be no doubt that big changes are coming in one form or another. The current lack of certainty around what the healthcare landscape will look like in a year or two has caused a great deal of discussion within the industry about the impact on healthcare delivery and what this will mean for patients.

During this transitional period, many pharmaceutical companies are necessarily adopting a 'watch and wait' approach but tentative plans are still being put in place. In fact, many of the concepts outlined in Andrew Lansley's controversial White Paper and Health & Social Care Bill had already been mooted by the previous government and are unlikely to have been a complete surprise to many in the industry.

The pharmaceutical industry has a key role to play in ensuring the best possible information, care and treatment are made available to patients in the future. The need for effective communication as part of this process should not be underestimated. If pharma companies are looking at how they need to evolve, it is essential for communications agencies to be doing the same – we can't predict the future but we can take a view and start preparing ourselves.

Fast-track your way through the latest thinking on the NHS reforms

Emerging trends
"As the pharmaceutical industry adapts to support the new NHS structure, we need to demonstrate how our medicines improve patients' health but also how they impact costs. Creating the case for investment in medicine and finding innovative ways to engage our audiences will create great challenges and opportunities that require strong communications capabilities," said Bernadette Murdoch, Director, External Communications, GSK.

Some key themes seem to have emerged across the industry in recent months that may help provide some pointers as to where communications agencies can most effectively offer support.

Increasing focus on market access: One thing that looks set to remain a focus in the years ahead is enabling market access to good services and a range of suitable treatment options. Now more than ever, it is essential to ensure messages are reaching decision makers and payers. Looking at the ways communications can support more traditional market access activity and adopting a more 'joined up' approach has the potential to add real value.

While the payer trade press is not extensive, there are other more indirect routes of reaching this audience. Let's not forget that payers read the papers too – identifying relevant targets in the wider press can help broaden media targets without diluting focus. It's always worth bringing the economy to bear on a clinical story and including messages around cost vs. benefit when developing a story.

In addition, patients, healthcare professionals, politicians and the general public all have a stake in how decisions about access are made and should be considered when developing more integrated communications / market access campaigns.

Focusing on the GP: GP commissioning is perhaps the aspect of the NHS reforms that has attracted the greatest number of column inches. Whatever the outcome of the ongoing debate, the rapid emergence of the first new consortia would seem to indicate that the idea is here to stay. Engaging with GPs has always been a mainstay of healthcare communications but the changing role of the GP will make this more important than ever.

GPs are likely to find themselves confronted with added responsibility and pressure without any extra time. We need to talk to GPs directly to ensure we are providing solutions that genuinely meet their needs. We need to find out what they want to know about a treatment, device or disease area and how we can provide that in an accessible format that doesn't take up more time and preferably saves it.

Having said all that, things are unlikely to change overnight and some consortia will undoubtedly choose to bring in expertise from the previous system, so chief pharmacists and other commissioning experts should not be forgotten as an audience.

One further consideration is the potential return to the 'postcode lotteries' of the past. Taking the government out of the equation and devolving responsibility for local decisions to local consortia may mean a lack of consistency across the UK. This will need close monitoring as an issue of huge importance in both patient and media terms.

Supporting the public health agenda: For some time, there has been an increasing focus on prevention over cure and the Public Health White Paper only served to underline this. Building strong partnerships has always been a fundamental part of any successful communications campaign and seeking out new relationships with future stakeholders, such as local authorities, could pay dividends. Local authorities are set to play a significant role in the delivery of public health messages, when responsibility for health has not sat with them in decades. This presents an opportunity to capitalise on our considerable industry experience in developing awareness campaigns; offering support to local authorities and overall benefit to the public.

Additionally, we need to start shifting our own focus to prevention when it comes to developing communications programmes. Taking a long-term view and considering how the right treatment at the right time can prevent complications or hospitalisations marries the need to communicate positive brand messages with the broader societal drive to reduce the negative impact of expensive, life-altering diseases.

Adopting new channels of patient and public communication: We are all aware of the growing need for digital solutions to communications challenges. The ever-expanding social network has put the general public at the centre of any healthcare discussion. Opinions and information are easier to share but with myriad voices comes the opportunity for misinformation.

This provides us with an excellent opportunity to engage with patients in new ways to ensure they are supplied with accurate healthcare information and appropriate support. Many within the industry are already doing so, but there are still a significant number of people who remain understandably cautious about exploring this channel given the need to ensure any and all patient communication sits firmly within codes of practice.

This is where we, as communications agencies, can ensure we are equipped to provide counsel on where social media tactics would be appropriate and beneficial. We need to integrate digital aspects throughout our programmes from the start and ensure these aspects are subject to the same rigorous standards of transparency we have traditionally employed elsewhere. The more confident we can be about what is possible and appropriate, the more confident our clients can be.

A final word on this, though. In the midst of the 'digital revolution' we shouldn't disregard the more traditional media channels. The front page of a national paper or a slot on the evening news is still a hugely powerful way to reach people. Regional media is another influential channel that may have been devalued in the past in comparison to the more high-profile nationals. In fact, a regional newspaper can be the best way to reach a local audience. The respect an outlet is held in when it comes to public trust should always be at the forefront of any decision about which media to target.

An exhilarating time for healthcare communications
The coming months will no doubt be a demanding time for those involved in healthcare communications but working in a time of transformation is also exhilarating. The changing environment requires inventive and original solutions if we are to develop programmes that truly engage. This is an opportunity to leave behind some of the 'tried and tested' tactics we all rely on from time to time, be brave and try something a bit different. Granted, we may not always get it right but we can continue to learn and innovate until we find what will offer maximum benefit for patients and the general public in the long-term. Better to embrace the challenge now than find that, as communicators, we no longer have a relevant voice in the field of health.

The author
Helen Laurence is Senior Consultant at Just:: Health PR and can be contacted at helen@justheathpr.com or on +44 (0)20 8877 8401