We are UHB: Emma Fancott, Head of Communications and Engagement

University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust runs Good Hope, Heartlands, the Queen Elizabeth and Solihull hospitals.

I have worked in the NHS for a total of 18 years, but this month I am celebrating my one-year anniversary at UHB as Head of Communications and Engagement.

I consider my entry into the NHS as a bit of a lucky break. I had studied journalism at Southampton Institute, but about a year into my course I realised I was more interested in Communications and Press Relations than I was in journalism itself. Partly because my shorthand was shocking, but mostly because I became really interested in how the media portrayed crises, and how companies of businesses and organisations involved in them, managed their reputation.

NHS communications wasn’t my first job out of university; I worked in trading standards first typing up the transcripts from interviews under caution.?But, like I said, I’d consider my entry a bit of a lucky one! My mum is a nurse at a local trust and had seen an email from their Director of Communications and she suggested I contact them to see if they had a job – which they did. I worked at that trust for 16 years, leaving as a Communications Manager.

From there I went on to work at Arden and GEM Commissioning Support Unit, where I was again in the right place at the right time; and soon became the Communications lead for the COVID-19 vaccination programme.?I loved every minute of it, I worked with some incredible people and I felt like I was making a real difference. Sometimes in Comms it can be easy to forget that we make a difference, because we don’t regularly have direct contact with patients.

I then moved to UHB as the Head of Communications and Engagement. I had always wanted to work at UHB. The Communications Team, and the Trust, have a fantastic reputation. I had always seen the work the team produced as aspirational, something to aim to be like. So, when the job came up it was a no-brainer! The Trust and the team have really lived up to all my expectations.

My working week is split between the office and working from home, which really works for me. I have four children so balancing a career and a family life is important to me. At UHB, with the opportunity of flexible working I get to do the small, but important things like take my children to school. I was told not that long ago that I couldn’t have my family and my career. But here, I really can have it all. I get to be mum and have a fulfilling career that I love. That’s partly because I make it work, I have a great support system around be, but I also have a boss, and an organisation, that give me the flexibility to make it happen.

There’s never a dull day working in Communications. In my role I get to do every type of comms, whether that is internal or external – from the regular updates to staff engagement and recognition, or from handling our social media accounts to dealing with the media.

I don’t really have a ‘normal working week’, as it is so varied and different. There are some regular things in my diary, such as our frequent team meetings, and the high-level meetings I attend as Head of Communications and Engagement with other teams across the Trust or the Birmingham and Solihull Integrated Care System. This week we have our all-staff Team Brief, which we have once a month and I co-lead on from a communications perspective, which is always fun! Truthfully, it’s a bit daunting as we broadcast to so many staff and we have to make sure it runs smoothly and is engaging, but fun all the same! But generally, the projects I work on change from week to week. For example, this week I am working on an awareness campaign about the effects of nitrous oxide, but last week I was working on recruitment!

My favourite part of my job is definitely the people. I like the challenge of trying to communicate with so many members of staff, with lots of different needs and who access information in so many different ways. I like that the work of the Communications Team can influence patient care, even if I need reminding of that sometimes.

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