Visualising the "NOW PROBLEM" of net-zero
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Helping overseas nurses to build a career and stay in the NHS is the aim of the new Stay and Thrive programme. A series of illustrations and animations enabled the programme to connect with a diverse range of stakeholders and overcome language barriers, contributing to the creation of an inclusive and welcoming culture.
Challenge:
As the UK’s largest employer, the National Health Service is acutely aware of the critical importance of both effective communication with, and the retention of, its workforce.
To help address high turnover levels, it created ‘Stay and Thrive’ – a programme designed to assist newly recruited international nurses integrate into the NHS, helping to create a compassionate and inclusive culture, and ultimately improve staff retention.
The Stay and Thrive team approached Scriberia to communicate the outcomes, insights, and progress achieved during its inaugural year-long programme. The challenge was twofold: to prioritise areas heavily impacted by staff retention issues and also ensure that the findings reached a wider audience and had a lasting impact across the entire NHS.
The team required a solution that would address the key communication challenges: conveying complex ideas and solutions, overcoming language barriers, and engaging with a diverse range of stakeholders.
Solution:
The project kicked off with four in-person events, each with over 100 people from more than 40 NHS organisations. At these events, attendees shared examples of community initiatives, best practice and lived experiences. Our scribes were present to vividly capture and illustrate these discussions. This approach helped engage participants, encouraging them to speak up and have their voices heard and recognised in real-time.
We produced four session output illustrations and two animations, highlighting real-life stories that celebrate diversity while safeguarding anonymity. Additionally, we created a summary ‘vision map’ complete with a QR code to direct individuals to further resources and content.
We carefully aligned the artwork with the NHS’s existing colour palette and illustration style, consistent with the People Promise – an organisation-wide commitment to enhance the NHS work experience. This ensured consistency with existing NHS assets for broader distribution and impact.
Results:
These assets have become a cornerstone of the Stay and Thrive communication strategy, shared across multiple channels including Twitter, YouTube, Vimeo, and internal NHS platforms. They’ve also been used at conferences, presentations, and learning events to communicate key outcomes quickly and inclusively.
The work helps simplify complex messaging and reduces barriers to engagement, particularly for non-native English speakers.
The visuals provide a fantastic way to quickly summarise the key elements of the project, especially for those who wouldn’t usually read academic journals so that they can go away and take action.
Stay and Thrive Team
The project has been shared with all seven NHS regions, growing the visibility of the campaign and its core message to build membership and momentum.
As someone new to the ops team, seeing the live story from the initial events and being able to understand the impact of conversations that I wasn't privy to in the moment, has enabled me to really understand the journey that the team has been on.
Stay and Thrive Team Member
We’re also proud to share that the work received an Award of Excellence from the Institute of Internal Communication (IoIC), as well as a Platinum award at this year’s DotComm Awards.
