1. Digital communication
Strategy 2011
«doing the basics very well«
«putting most effort into the things that matter most«
«removing the novelty from doing brilliant digital communication«

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Purpose
This document describes the Department of Health approach to
digital communication, and our priorities for 2011.
2011 will be a year of significant change for the Department.
Effective communication, and digital communication in particular, will
be crucial to us as we lead the health and care system through a
period of transition.
We aspire to use digital as the default communication channel for
the Department in 2011, helping us to listen, engage and deliver
messages.
This strategy is being delivered as a programme of work by the
digital communication team.

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Purpose
The digital communication team is responsible for the way the
Department of Health uses the web.
That includes how we:
‡provide digital communication platforms for the Department
‡communicate via official government digital channels
‡collaborate, manage communities, and participate online
We help the Department deliver policy and communications
objectives. We do this by using digital culture, tools and techniques
to help reach, listen to and influence our target audiences.
We embrace the massive opportunities we know exist for doing
brilliant digital communication. We provide our own channels, and
we exploit existing platforms to find new and better ways to deliver
DH policy objectives.

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The policy cycle
Digital communications tools and techniques should play a role for
staff at every stage of the policy and communications cycle:
for listening - to efficiently find out what others are doing and
saying, and quickly test and refine ideas and campaigns.
for engaging - to take part in conversations, reach out to
communities, and collaborate with our partners inside and outside
government to find better solutions to problems.
for broadcast - to deliver official information, steering the public
debate, and influencing the behaviour of our target audiences

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Digital context
Use of the web has changed massively in the last few years.
The cost of publishing to the web is now close to zero, meaning that
everyone has become a potential publisher. And the cost of access
to the web is decreasing every year - people can now access the
web from a variety of cheap everyday devices.
Social media - once the preserve of geeks and enthusiasts - is now
mainstream, just as likely to be used by nurses and patients as by
students and technologists.
More people in the UK have access to the web (76% broadband
access from home); people are spending more time online each
week (an average of 30 hours); people are increasingly finding ways
to integrate the web into their everyday lives (13.5m use the web on
their phones); and the web is beginning to penetrate previously hard
to reach groups (half of over 55s have broadband at home).

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DH context
DH is changing.
The transition to a new health and care system will present digital
communication challenges for the Department, both in:
‡the way the Department manages the process of transition during
the next five years, and
‡providing appropriate channels and approaches for the new
Department of Health, and supporting the migration of online
content and digital engagement activity from the Department to the
NHS

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Government context
The review of Directgov and the wider digital government estate, the
ongoing Transformational Government programme, and the freeze
on marketing spend will radically change the way Government uses
the web in the next few years.
Across government, we will focus our effort on providing digital
services, information and engagement that meets the needs of the
end user. This will mean vastly reducing the number of government
websites, possibly ending up with just one website for government.
It will also mean providing more information to support
transparency, such as data and responses to Freedom of
Information requests.
The role of government digital teams will no longer just be to
manage a corporate website on behalf of their Department. Instead
they will be challenged to find new and innovative ways to use a
variety of digital channels and techniques to deliver Departmental
objectives.

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Principles
A set of principles guide the work of people working on digital communication for the
Department:
Strategic - we can justify everything we do by how far it delivers the priorities of the
Department. That means bringing innovation to priority projects, and delivering a template
approach to others.
Transparent - we do attributed, overt comms. And we actively encourage others to reuse
our content and data.
Mainstream - we enable the department to deliver core business. Digital communication
has a role in everyone¶s job, rather than a geeky afterthought for the enthusiastic.
Audience - everything we do online is delivered with a specific audience in mind, and
promoted to that audience.
Distribution - we are the primary source for DH messages. We develop the means and
the method to distribute ideas and information in a way that suits the audience.
Partners - we work with partners and use 3rd party tools to deliver our objectives. We
provide a digital presence not a website, and we aren¶t precious about being a destination.
Practitioners - we edit, write, photograph, film and record, and enable colleagues to do
the same.
Technology - we reuse existing brilliant tools and methods rather than starting from
scratch.
Evidence based - we evaluate what we do as we¶re doing it, and get better at it as a
result.

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Priorities
We have three broad areas of focus:
Tools and channels
...doing the basics very well...
Campaigns and content
...putting most effort into the things that matter most...
Digital capacity
...removing the novelty from doing brilliant digital communication...

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Tools and channels
Enhance our platform
Provide straightforward, devolved, content management, and agile
templates for our official web presence.
Provide an enhanced subscription offer to ensure we extend our
reach beyond people browsing our site.
Ensure the website offers more than just an archive of official
information.
Enrich our official channels with rich and dynamic media from
elsewhere.
Ensure smooth user journeys through our web presence, including
common design and layout and standards.
Provide mobile options for our content

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Tools and channels
Our offering
Define our offer to the Department, including a set of corporate and
3rd party channels and a methodology for doing digital
communications.
Provide incoming web presences (such as an agency or ALBs,
NDPBs) with:
‡a place on our corporate channels
‡a standard DH branded sub-site
Provide online-only versions of comms and marketing to
supplement or replace offline versions.

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Tools and channels
Platform/process management
We need to ensure that our entire web estate is treated as a
communications tool.
Our µtechnology¶ principle means that we should use existing,
brilliant and open-source tools instead of implementing large-scale
IT solutions.
Save 50 per cent of the money we spend on our websites, and plan
to make further substantial reductions in our technology spend after
that.
Clarify roles and responsibilities between the people who work on
digital communications within the Department.

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Tools and channels
Standards
Ensure we¶re delivering against government and industry digital
standards.
Run an accessibility review with real users.
Listening
Make full use of regular analytics reports in our editorial process -
respond in close-to-real-time to trends.
Provide real-time sentiment analysis and other real-time monitoring,
including dashboards for our projects and campaigns.

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Campaigns and content
Method
Provide a methodology that defines how we use the web to listen,
engage, and broadcast for:
‡intensive high priority policy areas and campaigns
‡lower priority projects
Campaigns - treat high priority areas for the Department as high
priorities for digital communications, in particular:
‡Transition
‡Public Health
‡Social Care
Editorial
Generate creative bespoke web content for our corporate site. Make
use of our skills as web journalists to promote policy and news
content.
Develop our digital editorial process, plugging into the news and
policy planning processes.

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Digital capacity
Health digital estate
Influence the wider conversations about digital information across
the public sector health estate.
Training ourselves
Become better able to deliver creative digital content. Develop our
capability to be the in-house practitioners in: web journalism, video
production, including shooting and editing, audio capture and
publishing (including podcasting), photography, community
management, digital outreach and participation
Internal campaign
Run an internal campaign to distribute the method, and skills
needed for effective digital communication.
Establish ourselves as being responsible for the way that DH uses
the public web (strategy and delivery).

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Digital capacity
Communities
Establish relationships with online health communities in order to:
understand and map our audience, and provide extended reach and
insight for our campaigns.
Participation
Develop a culture of attributed personal-and-official digital content,
encouraging online participation in conversations by officials and
ministers.
Digital ministers
Find effective ways to work with ministers to use digital tools and
techniques to help them deliver their objectives.

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Digital capacity
Consultancy
Provide advice and a network for all digital communicators in DH.
Ensure that campaigns run by others on behalf of DH are in line
with our approach to digital communication, and provide a useful
legacy for the department as well as delivering in the moment.

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