Covid-19 Platform Launch for Public Health Scotland by Big Red Digital

We were contacted by our client, Healthy Working Lives late last week when they needed some urgent help. As a supporting arm of the NHS, they needed a resource that would allow them to publish key information and advice for Scotland’s workforce on the current Coronavirus Pandemic.

They knew they needed to provide something for their extensive network but were unsure exactly what it should be or how to approach it. Initially, they considered a single page on their website that they could update on their website, but internal resource had already been shifted to help deal directly with the crisis in hand. Also, since it is a largely automated solution, the existing website was not easily accessible or administrable.

One of the other challenges that Healthy Working Lives identified was around the content. As important updates come through to them, they arrive in a variety of formats. They could be official Government videos, plain text, photography, downloadable fact sheets. Getting this information out expeditiously, but in an organised way was crucial to them.

After consulting with our team, we were able to assess what they needed and to provide a solution that gives them everything they need – and more. The CMS (Content Management System) within our Big Red Business Platform makes it really easy to publish all of the types of content mentioned. It does this ‘out of the box’. Building and updating pages can be done in minutes – even by administrators who have no coding experience whatsoever.

Additionally, the platform provides Healthy Working Lives with a fully administrable blog, or news section. By publishing and categorising regular articles, they can provide updates on their own activity in helping to fight the virus too.

We wanted to help the NHS in any way we could at this frantic and unprecedented time, and we had no hesitation in prioritising this for them. Work commenced on the platform design and build on Friday evening. Our design team created style sheets within Healthy Working Lives existing guidelines and a short demonstration video of the platform was with the client before close of play using placeholder content.

On Monday, the page content began to filter through to us and the general format began to take shape for the pages. A test version of the platform was provided on Monday afternoon and the final content was all in place by Wednesday evening.

We launched the Healthy Working Lives Covid-19 platform yesterday afternoon and the client is already making updates. You can see it here: https://covid19.healthyworkinglives.scot. Big Red will continue to support and assist Healthy Working Lives as they expand this as an ongoing resource.

The feedback from Healthy Working Lives was all we needed to hear;

“I wanted to take a pause from the chaos that has consumed us this week and say a “Huge Thanks” to you all at Big Red. This has been a very strange and difficult week and your support and energy to assist us in any way has been very much appreciated. I know you are doing things at record speed for us and pulling out all the stops to allow us to service our customers in these difficult times.

I know we had the NHS clap, but we are sending you a Mexican wave from the team here”

- Yvonne Abson, Senior Health and Work Officer Public Health Scotland

For many businesses, their digital presence is currently the only way that they can reach out to customers to inform them of what is happening and also to begin to build other revenue streams. We are working on several extremely exciting and interesting projects with some clients at the moment. Please, talk to us and see if we can work together to help get you through this crisis.