case studies bradford district care trust 'brand' work

Working within the NHS's tight guidelines, what a great challenge! Bradford's Care Trust is going through a transformation, trying to gain Foundation Trust status.  As a Foundation Trust, they will, on the plus side, have a greater degree of financial autonomy, but the challenge is that Primary Care Trusts will then have the choice of service providers; not be prescribed a Secondary Care Trust to work with.

 

This is great news for design because this level playing field means Bradford District Care Trust (BDCT) now have to operate in a competitive market. They were now a 'brand' that needed positioning with its own set of values that would differentiate it from other service providers.  Service users now had the chance to choose who they wanted to work with for their mental health care.

 

The word 'brand' is used in speech marks above because any identifying work done on the Trust had to be done in the context of the NHS guidelines which didn't allow for sub-brands.  What we created was a regionally-relevant look and feel to everything that the Trust produced, whether in print or on the web.  It was a fine balance between maximising the brand value of the NHS association and differentiating the Trust from the competition.

 

This was one of the most research intensive 'brand' projects as there were so many stakeholders to consider, from board directors to carers and service users.

 

The key message we got from service users was that their care had to be about them being helped by the Trust, not the Trust helping them. It was about power, control and trust. BDCT's strapline prior to working with RPA was "With you at the heart of everything we do".  This message took a number of years to get across and never truly got buy in.

 

We developed the line of "You and your care", which is now more than a strapline, it is an approach the Trust take in their care.  It was all about understanding the needs of the target audience.

 

In developing the identity, there was some talk of a certain David Hockney getting involved. The question was put to him via the Trust's Chairman, but he was in the middle of a developing a major new Yorkshire series of artwork.  So we turned to Matt Sewell (Click here for Matt's site), an incredibly talented illustrator and artist from Durham.

 

 

 

 

Armed with a list of places that represented the boundaries of the region that BDCT covered, he trawled Google Earth, Maps and Images to piece together an artistic representation of the region.  The genius in it is the lack of local knowledge gives it a pleasing uniqueness!

 

We have then gone on to apply this style to BDCT's annual report and should have gone on to develop a usage guide so that it could be rolled out across their vast literature, but then the economic axe fell and all went dark....