Winter Illnesses - Key messages and available resources

The Scottish Government, working closely with Public Health Scotland and NHS 24, have brought together all winter illness stakeholder resources in the Stay Well Resource Hub - Winter Illnesses

Please note these resources are in addition to the Health Campaign Assets for Winter Months that were shared earlier in December.

Planned Winter Illness Communications

Communications are planned to help prevent the spread of winter illnesses such as flu. This includes:

• paid for social media advertising
• radio messaging across the Bauer network from 18 to 26 December.

We would appreciate your help sharing relevant campaign assets with your audiences.

Key messages

• To prevent the spread of flu, we continue to recommend regular handwashing and advise people with symptoms of respiratory illness to stay home where possible and away from hospitals until you’re feeling better.
• If you have flu-like symptoms such as a high temperature, cough or feeling tired and achy – try to limit contact with others, especially those at higher risk, like babies, older adults and those with underlying health conditions.
• If you do need to go out when unwell, please consider wearing face covering.
• For more information and simple steps you can take to help stop the spread of winter illnesses visit nhsinform.scot/flu

Escalation Planning

In the event of services becoming over-burdened/at the point of capacity, there are a number of escalation messages available to stakeholders (Health Boards) which can be used to ensure consistency of messages being delivered to the public. Resources can be accessed via the SG Communications Resource Centre - Escalation Planning