The healthcare campaigns that get it right all start in the same place

Campaigns that truly land don’t just include the patient story, they are built from it.

Last week I saw and heard several powerful reminders.

• Alzheimer’s Society: a deeply personal TV campaign centred on a single patient story. It begins simply, “I’m going to need your help” and expands to include carers, clinicians, loved ones. And ends with a perspective that we are all involved “we all have a role to play in developing medicine”
• Cancer Research UK: speaking on the Today programme, calling for increased investment in equipment and infrastructure – so people can be diagnosed earlier, treated faster and ultimately spend more time with the people they love
• British Heart Foundation’s Keep us Beating TV campaign: sharing incredible patient stories – among them Eloise, whose 25 years of life after a heart transplant is a reminder of what treatment and time can give back.

And then, the most intense expression of all: the London Marathon. A record-breaking 59,000 finishers, raising tens of millions of pounds for hundreds of charities, many of them health-focused. Among them Jordan Adams, who ran the full 26.2 miles carrying a 25kg fridge for his FTD Foundation. AnA heroic feat with a simple but acutely insightful message born of his own experience to make dementia visible, “We all carry something, You don’t have to carry it alone”. And the phenomenal Sally Orange MBE who ran just 6 weeks after completing a year of treatment for breast cancer.

What stood out wasn’t just the scale.

It was the clarity.

Across cancer, Alzheimer’s, heart disease and more, very different organisations were telling very different stories with the same underlying message – the patient story is about time.

The stakes couldn’t be higher.

A reminder that whether we’re building disease awareness campaigns, impact only matters when it connects back to the patient. The patient story has to stay close.

Strip away the language of transformation programmes and delivery plans and most healthcare strategies are trying to do the same thing:

• earlier diagnosis
• faster treatment
• better support
• more joined-up care

All rational. All measurable.

But they only matter because of how they impact patient outcomes.

This is where the shift is happening.

The patient story isn’t a way of illustrating strategy. It’s the expression of it.

It’s not enough to say you’re patient-centred. You have to keep connected to the patient and ask:

• are we designing around what matters to people?
• do our priorities reflect lived experience?
• are we talking about outcomes in ways people recognise as their own lives?

Because the difference is visible and it’s so important to get this right.

When you align what you do with what people actually value, your strategy becomes easier to understand, easier to support, and ultimately more meaningful.

Links
The FTD brothers 
Alzheimer’s Research UK
Alzheimer’s Society
Cancer Research UK 
Sally Orange MBE

You can see his whole story and follow the 32 marathon challenge by Jordan Adams via @ftdbrothers on Instagram.