Underfunded and understaffed, social care is in a deep state of crisis. With its already precarious future at risk, if social care continues to be overlooked by government and public alike, soon enough it will become a thing of the past.
As an ageing population with an increasing morbidity rate, we need social care more than ever. Despite growing demands, these services have faced severe funding cuts over the past few decades, leaving over one million people deprived of basic support. Unpaid carers and an overstretched NHS are left to pick up the pieces.
Responding to the urgent need to reform how social care is funded in the UK, The NHS Confederation is leading a coalition of fifteen health organisations to deliver the campaign, Health for Care. Its objective is to make a case for a sustainable settlement for social care by calling on the Government to add it to the 2019 Spending Review agenda.
The NHS Confederation approached us with a complex communications challenge to create an identity for the campaign that could be used to reach two distinct audiences. The immediate requirement was to engage government, stressing the crucial need for a long-term plan for social care. The secondary requirement is to take the campaign out to the general public, to raise awareness of the crisis in social care and the urgent need for action.
We created a singular identity but developed two distinct straplines – one for each audience – both strong calls to action, giving the campaign an immediate voice. ‘Plan. Reform. Fund . Deliver’ clearly presents the government audience with the four steps needed to effect change, leaving no room for debate. And for the public: ‘Demanding a future for social care’, to stress the severity of the situation if we don’t act, and fast.
We chose to leverage the NHS brand in the visual identity while avoiding a direct pastiche. Using its core blue, we designed the visuals with a view to imploring both audiences to value social care as much as they do our National Health Service. If the NHS were to reach breaking point, there would be a palpable sense of national despair, panic and anxiety – these were the emotions that we wanted to capture and apply to the issue of social care.
It is the sad truth that as social care descends into crisis, it also departs to the margins of public and political consciousness. That’s why Health for Care is a vital campaign that deserves recognition across the UK. We are looking forward to seeing its impact on the upcoming Green Paper and annual spending review.
