Kung flu fighting staff chop through flu comms

How do you encourage employees to have a flu jab? This annual ritual is fast becoming a regular occurrence in the comms calendar for many organisations, and I thought I’d share this fresh approach I discovered today.

flu‘Kung Flu Fighters’, the ‘Flus Brothers’, ‘The Moody Flus’, and a walk along ‘Jabby Road’ all form part of an unusual music video created to encourage hospital staff at to have their annual flu vaccination jab.

To help ensure even more staff at Poole, Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch hospitals in the UK take up the offer of a jab, employees took Carl Douglas’ 1974 disco hit as their inspiration to create Kung Flu Fighting.

It comes complete with new lyrics giving a seasonal flu message and an accompanying video showing karate-chopping staff receiving their ‘jabs’.

NHS staff are invited to have a flu jab each year as winter approaches to help protect them from getting flu, and to avoid its spread to colleagues and patients.

Who got involved?
The video depicts a range of clinical and non-clinical staff from both hospital trusts, from nurses and porters to radiotherapists and even both foundation trusts’ chief executives.

I love the fact the chaplaincy teams got in on the action – they had some good moves!

Martin Smits, Director of Nursing and Patient Services at Poole Hospital, appears in the video with colleagues from the hospital’s executive team.

He said: “Each year we look to ensure that the vital message about the importance of flu vaccinations reaches as many staff as possible staff. We know the take-up of these vaccinations is good but we recognise there is still room for improvement.

“This year we wanted to present these important messages in a fresh and memorable way – our occupational health and communications teams certainly rose to this challenge. Underneath the fun, there is of course a very serious message for our staff – having a flu jab is the responsible thing to do, and will help us to continue to offer the high quality care our patients rightly expect from us throughout the winter.”

Karen Allman, Director of Human Resources at the Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and colleagues from the Trust’s executive team also got in on the act.

She said: “The welfare of our staff is of huge importance so we ensure we arm them with the facts about flu and encourage them to have the flu jab. This not only helps protect them from getting flu, but also stops the risk of spreading flu to patients, visitors and colleagues.

“By engaging so many members of staff at all levels in this campaign film, we wanted to make it clear that flu is everyone’s business and that this very important message will reach more people than ever.”

Well done to the comms teams and everyone involved in putting the short video together. It certainly made me smile and I hope it has the desired effect.

You can see the Kung Flu Fighting video via YouTube or below, enjoy!

Blackpool Hospital

boysUpdate: I hit publish on this article and was then made aware of a second video that is doing the rounds, circulated by the creative people at Blackpool Hospital @BlackpoolHosp as part of the NHS #flufighter campaign.

It’s in the style of a Quentin Tarantino film – a first for me as not seen that style used in internal comms before! – and you can just tell from watching that the team behind it throughly enjoyed stalking through the corridors as they filmed it. You can see it below too.

Got a comms campaign you’re proud of? I’m always on the look out for new stories to share. Check out my guidelines, see my guest archive and do get in touch by Tweeting me @AllthingsIC or sending me an email to let me know your idea.

Rachel

Kung Flu Fighting:

Blackpool Flu Fighters:

Post author: Rachel Miller

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