In 1972 a bestselling book warned of a global decline and general downturn for civilisation from the year 2020.

As a prediction “The limits to growth” now seems incredibly prescient although a global pandemic wasn’t really a part of the equation that crunched huge volumes of data on economics, population and industrialisation.

Scenes from the US Capitol and the never-ending lockdowns here seem to give it extra credence but to counter all your doom scrolling here’s something to lighten your heart.

NHS comms has been in full swing again this week and it was great to see the North East leading the pack in terms of numbers.

A patient called Isabella from our patch celebrated her 100th Birthday last week and become one of the first people to get the Oxford vaccine in her home.

Click here to see more and enjoy the lovely South Northumberland accent of nurse Kate.

Pandemic innovation

While we’re right in the teeth of the third wave at the moment it’s still important to learn lessons and look beyond the here and now. The pandemic has supercharged new ways of working and efficiency but it’s not always been just about technology.

Among all the new fancy digital tools and video conferencing apps the most valuable thing that I’ve rediscovered has been the giant office whiteboards.

Our Chief Executive was the focus of this months national Winter Watch highlighting how adversity has driven improvement. https://nhsproviders.org/nhs-winter-watch-202021/week-4

Spokespeople: local & trusted

It’s never been more important to make sure your messages are delivered with a local voice by the people who will be trusted the most in your community. This has been a major part of our comms mix during the pandemic with hundreds of videos by our frontline staff. 

Here A&E doctor Tom urges the public to use the right healthcare service as winter starts to bite.https://www.facebook.com/202938419763148/posts/3767883453268609/

Partnership

One of the most heartening things about the current situation is the way it has brought teams together not just in the NHS,bit also in working as a region with comms people from the council, the police, utilities and many more.

Some listening

Here’s a podcast on the tale I mentioned at the top: The book that warned 2020 would bring disasterhttps://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3cszmw3

Sea Shanties are all the rage this week. Here’s the pick of them from Dan Jackson https://twitter.com/northumbriana/status/846454474654781442