Better health in West Yorkshire through social media

NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board achieves higher engagement, improved health outcomes and positive feedback using Orlo social media platform. 

Public outreach and engagement present a range of challenges – but done well they can have a significant impact. That’s already evident from work done by NHS West Yorkshire ICB, which serves some 2.4m people in five local areas (Bradford district and Craven, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds, and Wakefield). The ICB improved its engagement with these people, and their health outcomes, by implementing Orlo’s social media management platform as part of an overall digital comms strategy to ensure consistent and more effective messaging.

Photo courtesy of Orlo

Using the Orlo platform, social media campaigns can be more easily scheduled and published on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn and other sites. The ICB can also manage inbound demand and monitor emerging trends. Through engagement across these platforms, and what’s called ‘social listening’, opinions and behaviour can be affected for the better.  

Karen Coleman, Associate Director Communications and Engagement at NHS West Yorkshire ICB, says: ‘We’ve already run highly successful campaigns using the Orlo platform, including ‘#MumsCan quit smoking’, supporting pregnant mothers who want to give up smoking and ‘It’s a GP practice thing’ which is increasing awareness of how GP practices work.  

‘We’ve noticed an uptake in our community engagement rates and we’ve had positive feedback from our colleagues across the health and care system. They are already benefiting from the improved coordination and streamlining of processes, freeing up their time to spend on more strategic or localised activity. 

‘With all our social media communications on Orlo’s platform, we can collaborate better as a unified team across the region for better health outcomes. We can ensure clarity and consistency of our messages and build trust with local people and communities.’    

A key benefit of the Orlo system is that comms staff have easier access to share the ICB’s own social media assets as well as content from NHS England and other strategic partners, as part of a wider, unified team. The result is greater confidence among staff and consistency in content across the ICB. 

It shares the Orlo platform with colleagues from the West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership, including programmes based at Leeds and Yorkshire Partnership Foundation Trust, South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, West Yorkshire Association of Acute Trusts, Airedale NHS Foundation Trust and West Yorkshire Violence Reduction Unit. In fact, the ICB works with a wide range of organisations in the health and care sector including councils, care providers, hospices, Healthwatch and the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector. 

Phil Evans, Managing Director of Orlo says: ‘NHS West Yorkshire ICB is a true innovator, and we are delighted to be supporting the communications team with our social media management platform in its mission to utilise its collective resources more efficiently and secure wider benefits of investing in health and care.’

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