A new report, ‘On the brink of SoMething Special’ has identified the top 50 NHS organisational Twitter accounts and revealed that four of the top 10 are held by ambulance services.
The report, the result of nine months research and analysis of NHS social media, was undertaken by leading consultancy JB McCrea, supported by NHS Providers. Twitter accounts used by NHS organisations have been ranked using a combination of their numbers of followers and numbers of tweets. Combining these two factors gave a ‘Follwers/Statuses Index’ for each organisation.
In the top spot is Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust – @GreatOrmondSt, with London Ambulance Service NHS Trust – @Ldn_Ambulance second and West Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust – @OFFICIALWMAS third. Also in the top 50 are North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust – @NWAmbulance (sixth); East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust – @EastEnglandAmb (eighth); East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust – @EMASNHSTrust (17th); and South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust – @SECAmbulance (32nd).
London Ambulance Service Communications Director Charlotte Gawne said, “Twitter is a great way for us to talk to Londoners about what we do. It shows the huge range of calls we attend and demonstrates how highly skilled our staff are. Patients also use Twitter to feedback back on their experience and we know social media is another way we can be an open and transparent organisation.”
West Midlands Ambulance Service Communications Director Murray MacGregor said, “This is excellent news and very rewarding for the Trust. We are relatively new to social networking having started in January 2011. Since then the team has become very enthusiastic about embracing all forms of social media to promote WMAS, provide information and engage with followers and the media.”
SECAmb Head of Communications Janine Compton said: “We’re really pleased to be named in this top 50. Twitter is of course just one way, which we choose to communicate with our patients, members of the public, staff and other interested parties but it’s proving really successful. As well as us tweeting about the Trust’s work it also provides people with the opportunity to raise questions and complement our staff. It also ensures our messages are received and retweeted by our followers very quickly and efficiently.”
The report is available to download at http://jbmccrea.com/download-report/
