Supporting NHS Health Checks uptake
We in PHE marketing are big fans of the NHS Health Checks and are actively looking for ways to improve consumer awareness and uptake. During 2014-15 we launched the marketing tool kit, PR tool kit, image bank and poster and outdoor visuals to support all those promoting and implementing the NHS Health Check programme.
The role of the PHE marketing team is to change the behaviour of individuals, families, workforces, communities and businesses, so that it becomes easier for all of us to live healthier, longer and more fulfilled lives.
We do this by:
- gaining insight into why people behave as they do
- deploying learning from the behavioural sciences to change behaviour
- understanding the needs of local communities
- developing impactful creative campaigns
The NHS Health Check is a national programme implemented locally, so our national marketing campaigns need to support local variation and supply. Consequently we have worked with NHS Choices, Jamie Waterall and his team to refresh the consumer-facing content on NHS Choices, launched a national service directory tool, allowing members of the public to search for their local NHS Health Check service, and launched the heart age tool. On average the NHS Health Check pages on NHS Choices receives 100,000 visitors per month, 6,000 searches are completed every month using the service directory tool and 666,000 people have calculated their heart age.*
In 2015-16 we will continue to support those promoting and implementing the programme locally. We will design a regional testing programme to identify which messages and media are most effective at creating awareness, driving usage and assessing the level of local demand generated. We are also exploring ways in which to include the Health Checks message in our upcoming national adult Live Well campaign which will launch in January 2016.
Access free NHS Health Check marketing and branding resources here.
*Number of people who have completed the heart age tool between 14 February 2015 and 16 June 2015.