SOCIAL PROPOSAL: Proposals to Improve Health and Wellbeing Board Social Media… what do you think?

There’s a new network of key bodies across England that work to improve the health and wellbeing of their local residents and reduce health inequalities.

Known as ‘health and wellbeing boards’, they bring together the local council, clinical commissioning group, Healthwatch and other key local players in a genuine partnership and they do a really important job.

By their own admission they are not always great at using social media and, while there are some good examples, we think some light-touch guidance would encourage people to explore the opportunities of increased or improved digital engagement.

We’re very pleased to say that we have been chosen by the Local Government Association to help them draw up some proposals for this guidance and we’d like to ask what you think of it so we can polish and shape it.

We think better social media can lead to better engagement, better transparency, better communication, better curation and better listening.

Our broad thoughts in six points:

• Rather than have a one-size fits all set of guidelines we think they should be phased from the entry-level one star right up to the top-of-the-class five star.
• We think there should be some thought given to the name of whichever social profile is used. It may be that the name ‘health and wellbeing board’ is off-putting to some people.
• We think there is enough guidance out there for professionals and we’d like to signpost people towards that. Doctors, for example, have the BMA social media guidelines. Elected members have some of their own too. We don’t want to replace these but we do make some suggestions for how social media can be used by the health and wellbeing board as a whole.
• It’s not just Twitter. There is a range of different platforms. So when slides are shown, for example, they can be posted to a platform like slideshare so people can follow at home.
• Yes, livestreaming meetings on the internet is a good idea and we’d not only encourage that but we’d ask that space be given for the public to ask questions via a social channel too.
• We think engagement between meetings is key too. Not just during.

We think there should be some broad principles too:

The Five Be’s of an effective social Health and Wellbeing Board

Be engaging: it should interact wherever possible with users and reflect the debate.

Be timely: it should post information at a time that is most convenient to the audience.

Be jargon-free: it should use language that works on the platform of choice. It should not use jargon and language that people outside the health and wellbeing board would struggle to understand. It should be informal wherever possible.

Be connected: it should look to share content from partners and from across the public or third sector where is relevant. It could work with the partners who make-up the board to collectively focus on an issue to amplify a message and a debate.

Be informative: it should look to inform and to educate.

The five levels of social media

We’d love people to be on the fifth level but we have to be realistic. These proposed five levels give a low barrier to entry on level one and encourage councils to progress.

Level	Requirement
Level One	–       Post meeting date and time on one social platform–       Jargon free
Level Two	–       Post meeting date and time on one social platform-       Jargon free –       Cover meeting discussion on one social platform and curate content. –       Publish slides of presentations given at the meeting and post to a health and wellbeing board page or microsite.
Level Three	–       Post meeting date and time on one social platform-       Jargon free –       Cover meeting discussion on one social platform and curate content. –       Publish slides of presentations given at the meeting and post to a health and wellbeing board page or microsite. –       Livestream or allow residents to livestream and curate content. –       Enable questions to be asked of the meeting from social media
Level Four	–       Post meeting date and time on one social platform-       Jargon free –       Cover meeting discussion on one social platform and curate content. –       Publish slides of presentations given at the meeting and post to a health and wellbeing board page or microsite. –       Livestream or allow residents to livestream and curate content. –       Enable questions to be asked of the meeting from social media –       Digital engagement through social media between meetings that is fed back into the entire decision making process
Level Five	–       Post meeting date and time on one social platform-       Jargon free –       Cover meeting discussion on one social platform and curate content. –       Publish slides of presentations given at the meeting and post to a health and wellbeing board page or microsite. –       Livestream or allow residents to livestream and curate content. –       Enable questions to be asked of the meeting from social media –       Digital engagement through social media between meetings that is fed back into the entire decision making process –       Searchable agendas that used metadata –       An interactive website that the public can comment on. –       Members enabled to use one or more platform during and between meetings

 

So what do you think? Do you agree? Disagree? We’d like you to have your say on this.

Please complete our online survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/LGAforHWB.

Visit the LGA website for more information and a Word doc version of the survey.

The consultation closes on 2 July.

 Creative commons credits

Jumping http://www.flickr.com/photos/40645538@N00/179279964/