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NHS Central Lancashire, Communications Support

Overview
From August 2007 to December 2008, Unique supported the fledgling communications department at NHS Central Lancashire to establish itself, responding to the organisation’s changing needs and providing support in the form of secondments and retained project work.

The brief
Unique was originally retained by the newly formed Central Lancashire Primary Care Trust (later to become NHS Central Lancashire) to help with media relations for a public engagement exercise. Unique’s abilities were quickly recognised and it was then asked to stay on to support the PCT’s new management team and communications department following the merger of three smaller primary care trusts.

What Unique did
Unique’s senior consultant brought in a number of processes and a new approach to managing the department’s workload and resource planning. The core working procedures around its media relations and internal communications work were tweaked to bring a better service to the organisation.

Additional members of Unique’s team were drafted in for periods of time to handle changes in the in-house team and specific projects. The department was placed in a better position to support the organisation through a period of significant change.

Such changes included the departure and arrival of chief executives, the advent of ‘World Class Commissioning’ for primary care trusts, various public and clinical engagement initiatives and the advent of the wide-ranging changes for primary care trusts brought about by the Lord Darzi review.

Outcomes
Key PCT personnel were freed from the day-to-day running of the team in order to tackle important corporate issues.
The communications department was better able to meet the day-to-day needs of the organisation.
While under the temporary stewardship of Unique’s experienced Account Director the organisation was given the time and space to be able to make judgements about its future communications needs.
Unique was actively involved in finding and appointing its permanent in-house replacements.