NHS comms staff receive a birthday present from the CIPR

A joint agreement between the NHS and the CIPR will see NHS communicators receive special discounts and offers with the CIPR to commemorate the seventieth anniversaries being celebrated by both organisations.

The NHS was formed in Manchester on 5 July 1948 in what is now Trafford General Hospital, just five months after the CIPR was founded in St Bride’s, Fleet Street in London.

The agreement means NHS employees are entitled to a £70 discount off the first-year joining fees with the CIPR. NHS employees can also take advantage of a 10% discount on CIPR training workshops, with further discounts available for on-site in-house training.

Sarah Hall, President of the CIPR, recently published the third edition of her #FuturePRoof series, which exclusively focuses on communications within the NHS. Commenting on the deal with the National Health Service, she said: ‘We often talk about the drive to professionalism and our aspiration for membership of a professional body to be a prerequisite for employers.

‘This is an important step in that direction for one of the UK’s largest employers on its seventieth anniversary and I hope many of the NHS’s hardworking comms professionals will be inspired to take advantage.’

Rachel Royall, director of communications at NHS Digital, said: ‘Over the last 20 years I’ve benefitted from professional networks, training, qualifications and I’ve also met some of my closest friends through the CIPR. As a communicator in the public sector it is great to learn from professionals across the broadest spectrum of industries and backgrounds and to bring that learning back into my role as a communicator in the NHS.’

The announcement has been timed with the release of the third and final episode of the CIPR’s Platinum Podcasts series, which mark the Institute’s 70th anniversary and its upcoming commemorative book Platinum.

The last podcast explores the challenges facing modern public-sector communications and features Jen Robson, head of communications for the North East Enterprise Partnership and Liz Davies, head of communications at South Tyneside & City Hospitals, Sunderland NHS Foundation Trusts.

You can listen to the podcast here, and find out more about the NHS offer here.