Trust team scoops top communications awards

The communications team at Guy’s and St Thomas’ has won two prizes at the Corporate Communications Awards 2021.

It scooped Best In-house Team Internal Communications, and also won the overall Grand Prix award at the ceremony in East London.

The annual awards are run by Corp Comms magazine and attract entries from across all sectors and industries, and from the leading PR and communications agencies in the UK.

Throughout the pandemic, the Trust team launched and ran its Stay Safe, Keep Apart campaign to ensure patient and staff safety while in its buildings. It also promoted a comprehensive staff well-being programme.

The Grand Prix award is given to the entry or organisation that most impressed or consistently impressed the judges.

The judges praised the Trust communications team for: “the depth and breadth of your communications work – across the three disciplines. This also demonstrated the challenges you face on a daily basis, and the multiple stakeholder audiences – many of whom are tricky to reach.”

The Trust was also shortlisted for Best In-house Team Corporate Communications, and Best In-house Team Media Relations.

Anita Knowles, Director of Communications at Guy’s and St Thomas’, said: “We are extremely proud to have been recognised in this way.

“It’s a huge honour for our small, in-house team to receive both the award for Best In-house Internal Communications Team and also the Grand Prix award for outstanding achievement across the whole team. This recognition is a fantastic way to mark the most extraordinary 20 months in all our careers.

“It also reflects the dedication and hard work that we and the many other communications teams across the NHS have demonstrated throughout the pandemic.

“None of these things would have been possible without a talented, resourceful and extremely dedicated team of communications professionals working alongside operational and clinical colleagues every step of the way.”

During the pandemic, the communications team supported 22,700 staff as they worked tirelessly to treat some of the sickest patients with COVID-19, handled thousands of media enquiries, kept patients up-to-date with the latest information about services, supported staff health and wellbeing initiatives, and also helped to deliver more than 750,000 COVID-19 vaccinations to staff and communities across south east London.

A key project during the Coronavirus pandemic was to capture a range of individual staff experiences during wave 1. 'Our COVID-19 story' is an online collection of these long-form stories.