A Christmas Miracle - a Mash-up for the NHS

Everyone knows that it’s a challenging time for the NHS and morale is quite low...

People have a genuine concern for the future of the NHS. We have this fantastic institution that we are incredibly proud to work for, and we wanted people to recognise all the brilliant things that happen on an everyday basis, rather than feel miserable and unappreciated. We wanted to do something that could show just how valued the NHS is, just how loved the staff are, and inject a much needed moral boost to everyone.

We started as a campaign on Facebook, inviting all our friends and family to join, but what happen next overwhelmed us. Very quickly it spread across other social media platforms, and after a few weeks, we had more than 160,000 people signed up to the campaign..

The  #LoveYourNHS. hashtag was created and we started to invite people to show their love and appreciation for the NHS; we invited people to get involved and say I DO.

This campaign needed something more tangible, and this thing came in the form of song - well why not? No sooner said then done; NHS Lewisham and Greenwich recorded 'A bridge over you', a remix of the popular 'Bridge over troubled waters’ by Simon and Garfunkel, and 'Fix you' by Coldplay.

The Choir featured physiotherapists, porters and administrators, as well as doctors and nurses. They also produced a simple but emotional video showcasing the social and human importance of their work. So far the video has had an incredible half a million views and counting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8qHXlShfUQ. All proceeds will be shared between charities including Carers UK and Mind. By buying this song people aren’t just showing their support for the choir and charities involved but for the NHS as a whole.

This song celebrates the work of all the unsung heroes in the NHS, whose amazing work is often taken for granted. It sums up,very beautifully, everything about working in the NHS, it’s about raising the profile of the NHS at such a time of change. It’s a simple enough message – show your support for something you believe in and help others. 

We did it!

The message was strong and easy to understand; there is something incredibly powerful about this simple message that set the nation alight, touched its heart and has its own. Politicians and newspapers developed an unprecedented interest in spreading good news about the NHS! Fantastic stories of unsung heroes were on newspaper front pages and headlined TV news programmes. Social Media went on fire and #NHS4XmasNo1 trended in the week leading to Christmas.

When it because the magical Christmas Number 1, the nation roared with pride. Together we managed to take our beloved NHS all the way to Christmas Number One. Absolutely incredible.

The success of the campaign has been that people felt involved . My twitter timeline was full of messages from people saying wonderful things about the NHS. People felt touched by it and took ownership of the campaign. It has been a campaign from individual to individual, from heart to heart and has toaken off on a way that we would never imagine. Everyone has been involved, from frontline staff to all the way up to Simon Stevens and Jane Cummings and beyond. The message has unite people, has brought people together with one common purpose, to shout out and loud how proud we are of our NHS.

Never underestimate the power of people and Social Media. The NHS Choir have made history but the best thing of all is that this Christmas we have managed to put back the NHS where it belongs, we have managed to put the NHS at the heart of everyone and for once all professions have roar together with proudness. That for me is the most important thing we have achieve. Having a Christmas No1 is a bonus.