Local Outbreaks and Living with COVID-19

Andrea Newman Director of Communications & Engagement Surrey County Council A bit about Surrey….

Two-tier authority 11 District & Boroughs 1.2 million residents Border both Heathrow & 23,000 employees Gatwick airports (incl. schools) 24 - Comms team First UK case of COVID-19

England's chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty confirms first UK Coronavirus case is patient at the Haslemere Health Centre in Surrey (29 February, 2020) Early comms success

Circulated to all Members, MPs, D&B Chief Execs – fully established even before the major incident was declared

Issued daily from the day of our confirmed case, throughout the peak of the crisis (29 February – end July)

Regarded as the main source for guidance being issued by central Government

Contained updates on action being taken by the LRF (SCG) across Surrey

The one source for reliable PH data on cases both nationally and locally

Contained key lines to take for Members to share with residents, day by day

Shared with Surrey colleagues and with neighbouring LRF colleagues

Positioned the communications team trusted source of information Living with COVID

10,000 calls made to Hosted HRH shielding residents in Prince Edward one weekend with who visited 1,500 food parcels SCG and delivered in May to thanked staff vulnerable residents

The response to COVID has Virtual opening of meant pulling out all the stops the Seacole Centre, and delivering at pace Headley Court – a new community hospital by SofS , mobilised in 35 days Campaign to generate PPE supplies – generated 1,300 offers of help and more than 70,000 items donated (a handy retweet from Kirsty Allsop & Claudia Winkleman helped!) 2020 – the year of the infographic Local outbreaks and local lockdowns Communications & Engagement plan

Communicate the Test and Trace advice and guidance to maximise awareness and compliance and so help contain and reduce the spread of COVID-19

1. Amplify the national Test & Trace campaign through local channels with tailored messages for key audiences 2. Clear understanding of Local Outbreak Plans among key stakeholders 3. Rapid response achieved in the event of Local Outbreaks

Key principles of our communications messaging will be to: Motivate People Reassure people Alert People Create formats, language with symptoms to Test and Trace will safely ease In the event of local variants, audience participate in lockdown and return to normal escalation relevant contact sharing and life Guidelines, restrictions, if contacted to Encourage hygiene and social support updates isolate distancing 1. Amplify the national Test & Trace campaign through local channels with tailored messages for key audiences 2. Clear understanding of Local Outbreak Plans among key stakeholders

National Good Practice Network (GPN) Cabinet Office Public Services Network

Public Health Regional South East LRF England (Comms) Communications

Multi-Agency Strategic Local Outbreak Health Protection Information Command Group Local Operational Group Engagement Board Group (SCG/SLRF

Surrey County Surrey Surrey District Universities Community Chambers of Council Heartlands Police & Boroughs Pharmacies Commerce Comms plan

The communications plan has evolved as we have learned more about our public health response to the virus.

Our communications approach is split into three areas: • Phase 1 concentrating on amplification of national NHS Test and Trace and Public Health messaging and prevention. • Phase 2 informing residents of rising rates of infection and the need for extra vigilance. • Phase 3 alerting residents to high increases in infection rates, resulting in local interventions and restrictions in their area. 3. Rapid response achieved in the event of Local Outbreaks

Local lockdown ‘triggered’ by Joint Biosecurity Director of Public Health/HPOG Centre / TIAC Cell

Inform Local Outbreak & Local lockdown comms plan Engagement Board initiated by Director of Communications/MIG Rapid Response Comms Inform MPs/CEX/Partners Team mobilised (incl. Air Social, D&B, Health & Police Inform County and Local Pre-prepared assets issued Members/Cllrs by SCC and all partners Inform key stakeholders -SCG/partners/schools Lockdown measures closed down Local/regional media once contained editors informed By using social media and advertising data sets, we are able to quickly target residents online, through Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

This will complement other ‘mainstream channels’ such as local media. Will also be able to target our messaging across the Surrey border including Gatwick and Heathrow airports

Towards key target audiences by geography, job profile or ‘at-risk’ Escalation alerts

Elmbridge Amber Alert (03 Sept – 22 Sept) – FB & Instagram Seen by residents in the area 274,895 times Reached 64,752 individual people

Spelthorne Amber Alert (11 Sept – 18 Sept) – FB & Instagram Seen by residents in the area 87,607 times Reached 62,856 individual people

Spelthorne Red Alert (18 Sept – 25 Sept) – FB & Instagram Seen by residents in the area 224,385 times Reached 53,401 people Nextdoor

Keep Surrey Safe - posted to all 152k members (Surrey Wide) Keep Woking Safe - posted to 12k – reach Woking residents – reach 5,060 between engagement = 42% 75,567 – 95,922 engagement = 49% +

“Area of Concern” - posted to 7,245 residents in Spelthorne Ward – 3527 engaged with the post 48% engagement. Local engagement

• Enhanced phase 1 messaging reached 22,672 Woking residents on Facebook and Instagram (between 17th-23rd August) • Phase 2 messaging reached 33,955 Woking residents and had the highest engagement of any post in August (between 20th-28th August)

• Community engagement with Shah Jahan Mosque – translations and videos in Urdu and Bengali • Bengali and Urdu phase 1 messaging reached a total 1,533 Pakistani and Bangladeshi residents in Woking on Facebook and Instagram (between 14th- 19th August) • Imam shared videos and messages at Friday prayers and across community Whatsapp groups (we didn’t have access to). Targeted engagement

Our comms plan includes a breakdown of all our key stakeholder groups and how we plan to reach them, from more innovative digital approaches, to the most traditional methods

Created a Ensure we Our comms plan We continue to database of continue to use allows us to send work closely with shielding/ more traditional messages via GP all community vulnerable methods for those surgeries in and faith leaders residents so we digitally-savvy, and targeted locations and use wider can contact are preparing to which are text to influencers to them quickly write to them over residents share messages Winter