Background

NHS Communicate is a broad initiative designed to advance and develop the role of professional health communication and engagement across the NHS.

It was established in 2021 by the NHS Confederation, NHS Providers and the Centre for Health Communications Research at Buckinghamshire New University.

NHS Communicate undertakes a number of activities including:

• An annual health communication conference
• An annual health communication awards ceremony
• The annual ‘State of NHS Communications’ benchmarking report
• The NHS Communicate Diversity Taskforce

The NHS Communicate partners are also working together on the development of a personal development programme for NHS professional communicators to include:

• The post-graduate University qualification in health communications
• An apprenticeship course in health communications
• A wider health communications “professionalisation programme”

Professionalisation

In recent years, across the NHS, a number of previously “non-professionalised” roles have become “professionalised”, including, for example, nursing, paramedicine and human resources.

The NHS Communicate partners are now working together on a project designed to advance the professionalisation of health communication.

Our collective belief is that effective communication is a vital – but often under-valued – aspect of healthcare and that we need to professionalise health communication if it is to become the fully effective business tool that it could be.

The project

To this end we are working on a competency framework based on a three-level training and coaching programme for professional health communicators.  Our approach at all three levels reflects our aim of strengthening the diversity of the communications profession, drawing on and developing a wider pool of colleagues, representative of the communities they serve.

The three-level approach can be summarised as follows:

• Senior level:  The University Postgraduate Certificate (PGCert) course in health communication and engagement for present, future and aspiring health communication leaders.
• Intermediate level:  A shorter, certificated course from the Centre for Health Communication Research aimed at mid-career / mid-level professional health communicators.
• Entry level: A Level 4 (trainee) apprenticeship course – which could be paid for from Apprentiuceship Levy funding – for more junior staff and / or those who are newcomers to the NHS.

The PGCert will be a part-time, one-year University course that gives successful course participants the added status of post-nomial letters.  It would be a course that could readily be undertaken by health communication professionals while still performing their duties in a full time job.  The most relevant content we are developing for the postgraduate course could also be repurposed for both the intermediate and junior level training programmes.