Which UK HCP would make the best NHS App Ambassador? Now you can decide

“The best advert for our NHS is our extraordinary staff who continue to be the envy of the world”, says England’s Chief Nursing Officer Ruth May, who has launched NHS Digital’s appeal to find NHS App Ambassadors.

NHS Digital is looking for ten NHS workers to become the face of the NHS App on social media and in their communities.

Since CREATION Pinpoint is tracking the online conversations of more than 100,000 UK healthcare professionals (HCPs), including doctors, nurses, pharmacists and allied health professionals, we decided to take a quick look at who among UK HCPs on Twitter might be the best social media influencer for the NHS App. The team at CREATION studied more than half a million tweets posted by UK HCPs about the NHS since the start of 2019.

There are many factors that could determine whether an NHS HCP would make a positive advocate for NHS App, and we considered just a few of them in this brief analysis. Here’s what we found:

Which UK HCP has the most Twitter followers?

The UK HCP with the greatest number of Twitter followers is Ben Goldacre. With almost half a million followers worldwide, Dr Goldacre is surely approaching Twitter stardom. He rarely tweets about the NHS App, but when he does, he makes an impact.

Is Ben Goldacre the NHS worker Ruth May is looking for? Since he has only mentioned the NHS App once this year on Twitter, let’s take a look at some other factors.

Which UK HCP mentions the NHS App most?

If Dr May is looking for an NHS worker who already promotes the NHS App, she need look no further than Nottingham-based GP, Dr Hussain Gandhi. At the time of writing, Dr Gandhi has mentioned the NHS App 27 times so far in 2019.

An early adopter of the NHS App, Dr Gandhi shared a post back in May 2019 announcing that “The new NHS App has now launched in all Nottingham & Nottinghamshire GP practices.” And he actively encourages uptake of the App; last month, he launched an explainer video on Youtube to help patients.

Should Dr Gandhi be one of the ten NHS App Ambassadors? He is certainly keen.

Which UK HCP talks about the NHS most?

Paediatrician Dr Umesh Prabhu has mentioned the NHS in his tweets more than 15,000 times so far this year alone – that’s an average of around sixty times every day!

His most frequent topic of conversation is leadership in the NHS, an area he is passionate about, but, like Dr Goldacre, he rarely mentions the NHS App.

As the HCP who tweets about the NHS almost four times as much as any other UK HCP, could Dr Prabhu be an NHS App Ambassador?

Which UK HCP is most active on Twitter?

If you think that no HCP could post more tweets than Dr Prabhu, think again. Many UK pharmacists are incredibly active on Twitter, and none more so than Inverness, Scotland-based Gordon Mackenzie.

Mackenzie tweets almost exclusively about politics, with special attention given to Brexit. Since the beginning of 2019 alone, he has tweeted more than 50,000 times. That’s an average of one tweet every 6.8 minutes, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Could a pharmacist like Gordon Mackenzie make an NHS App Ambassador? Sadly I don’t think he would qualify, since the NHS App is only available in England.

Which UK HCP is most followed by peers in the UK?

Would it help if the NHS App Ambassador is well followed by their HCP peers in the UK? Aside from Ben Goldacre, the UK’s most-followed HCP, the UK HCP with the greatest peer following is Private Eye’s MD, Dr Phil Hammond.

But the only time Dr Hammond mentioned the NHS App on Twitter this year was not in a very positive light, when he shared a tweet by NHS Consultant, Dr Murphy.

Choose the top NHS App Ambassador

With all that in mind, here’s a table showing how we ranked UK HCPs on Twitter for suitability as NHS App Ambassadors. Our tip for Dr May is to rank the data below by CREATION.co’s NHS App Score, which uses a weighted score based on each of the factors above. Or try sorting by any of the other columns.

* between January 1st, 2019 and September 10th, 2019

Methodology notes:

• We used data from CREATION Pinpoint’s global database tracking more than 1.9M HCP social media profiles, which were identified using AI and then manually verified. The dataset for this study was restricted to 61,284 social media profiles of HCPs known to be in the UK and on Twitter.
• Although we understand that NHS England is looking for ambassadors from England, we took an inclusive approach, so some of our top-ranking HCPs are based in Wales, Scotland or other British Isles.
• Note that not all HCP mentions of NHS App were advocating for the App; in fact some of the HCPs mentioning the App were quite sceptical.
• We excluded from our dataset those HCPs known to work for NHS X or NHS Digital, many of whom are naturally enthusiastic about their work. We assumed that Dr May wishes to look more widely among NHS staff.
• We also excluded HCPs who are no longer practising, including retired HCPs.
• Many NHS staff are not included in our analysis, since we only looked at healthcare professionals, which we defined as doctors, nurses, pharmacists and allied health workers.
• Some of the HCPs in our analysis might not currently work for the NHS, but we understand they are all UK-based HCPs. If you know differently, let us know!

For more information about CREATION.co’s methodology or HCP insights, please do get in touch.

Image source: NHS Digital