The Kings Fund Case Study
Challenge:
The King’s Fund appointed Kinross + Render to prepare and implement a communications strategy to support the recommendations of the King’s Fund’s Commission on the future of health services in London.
The appointment had three key objectives: to obtain broad agreement that the facts on which the Commission would make its recommendations were irrefutable; to raise the profile and understanding of The King’s Fund in the lead up to publication of the report and to pre-empt potential, and unfair, criticisms of the Commission’s political independence and qualifications to comment.
The target audience was broad, incorporating Government, healthcare professionals, key stakeholders and residents of the capital.
Strategy:
K+R developed a strategy based on four approaches: to define and communicate with each key audience affected by the research; to take a proactive stance in disseminating the research findings; to promote the King’s Fund as a unique, objective and expert authority qualified to comment and advise on the shape of the health service developed for Londoners; to create opportunities to talk face-to-face with audiences about the findings and their implications.
Tactics:
On our recommendation, the research findings were released in a staggered fashion in the lead up to publication of the final report, the timing of which was moved to precede the Tomlinson Commission report. One-to-one briefings with key individuals within Government, the NHS, voluntary bodies, social services, the housing sector and the media were organised together with group briefings, seminars and conferences relating to the end report. News releases, media packs, Q&A’s and support collateral were developed in discussion with the King’s Fund management team.
Results:
This hard hitting campaign provoked intense, comprehensive and sympathetic media coverage of all the research reports, together with 100% attendance at pre-briefings and one-to-one meetings on the interim research findings. The Commission’s report dominated national and regional broadcast and print media on the day of its release. This was followed by extensive feature coverage on television and radio programmes. Coverage reached Newsnight, The London Programme, the Sunday nationals, the leading healthcare journals and key stakeholder publications. The three major conferences for health professionals were fully attended and a series of presentations were carried out to other key groups at their request.
Resulting awareness of The King’s Fund, the Commission and the importance of the report was high. Ministers and Opposition front benchers openly acknowledged the value of the report and respected the key role it played in the recommendations of the Tomlinson Commission later that year.
