In Conversation: Our Three Key Challenges, with Steven McIntosh (Executive Director of Advocacy and Communications at Macmillan Cancer Support)

by Warren Madlin, Director MadlinHanna Consulting

A series of conversations with communications and public affairs leaders continues this month as I speak to Steven McIntosh, Executive Director of Advocacy and Communications at Macmillan Cancer Support, about the challenges of working with a government in transition and against a backdrop of national health inequality and a difficult recruitment market.

Short-Term Solutions to Long-Term Problems

To be effective on the ground, you need a long-term view on healthcare public policy. The overarching challenge that our advocacy teams have is getting government to look beyond the next election. As a government’s term progresses and you get closer to election year, there is less and less of an eye on the long-term. The number of people living with cancer is set to rise from three million today to four million by 2030. As a result of the Coronavirus pandemic there are huge backlogs in NHS care on top of existing, chronic challenges facing the healthcare workforce. Governments in flux, focussed on making headlines rather than long-term policy making, present major challenges for advocates and campaigners.

Inequality

The most marginalised groups in society are more likely to get cancer, face worse experiences of cancer care and have decreased survival chances. We all have a part to play in redressing that imbalance. There have been a lot of ‘wake up calls’ in the last few years on inequalities. But big brand organisations must be careful about how they respond to ensure that promises are less about visibility and more focussed on the root causes of inequalities and discrimination – in how we operate externally and in our own internal culture. In healthcare, this means ensuring we develop the data and participation mechanisms to understand and tackle the barriers faced by excluded communities; we reflect on how accessible our own brands and services are; and we hold decision-makers to account for delivering the leadership and investment needed to do the hard work on equity.  

Hiring

It is a competitive talent market and within health policy and advocacy we often struggle with historical structures of very specialised roles. We should be more flexible with this, to open ourselves to a wider, more diverse pool of professionals and allow current team-members to be dynamic and flexible according to the key issues of the day. Whether you have a background in research, policy, public affairs or campaigns, what is needed now stretches beyond specialist technical skills, and instead focusses on overall strategic awareness of a ‘theory of change’ to achieve impact and skills in engaging and giving a platform to lived experience. Would looking outside of traditional healthcare, and of policy and public affairs skills for hires to bring a fresh set of eyes and increase the diversity of the recruitment pipeline? Quite possibly.

 Thank you to Steven for his contribution.

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MadlinHanna Consulting is a recruitment consultancy specialising in corporate affairs, covering public affairs, corporate communications and financial PR. Contact us on 020 8088 4102 for more information or a confidential conversation about these services and more.