London College of Communication (LCC) has collaborated with many established and well-known brands across categories on animation projects. The NHS has been one such partner that LCC has had a long-standing relationship with where our students have collaborated with them on different projects ranging from building awareness for various illnesses to fostering a meaningful relationship with the community. Animation has been the preferred medium for many of these projects as it has the ability to communicate complex and sensitive subject matters in an engaging, attractive and easy-to-understand format.

NHS Partnership Southwark chose animation for their campaigns to raise awareness for breast cancer and prostate cancer among minority communities. BA (Hons) Animation students worked on both these campaigns. They used testimonials and audio recordings from people who have experienced cancer to develop the concept and  the script for their films. The testimonials were stories from survivors that dispelled the stigma and fear around breast and prostate cancer. After the successful delivery of films for these two campaigns, NHS Southeast London Prescribing Support Dietetic team reached out to LCC to collaborate with MA Animation students to create animated films that would disseminate guidelines on how to prescribe infant formula to paediatric patients and oral nutritional supplements to adults to the GPs. The students used research material and prescribing guidelines provided by the NHS to arrive at the final films.

Four films, Speak up, Say NO to Cancer, Together and It’s in your hands, were selected for the breast cancer awareness campaign. The films were launched on International Women’s Day and distributed across Southwark through social media and healthcare channels. Ten films were selected for the Let’s Talk About Prostate Cancer series, which were launched during Men’s Health Week, and will form part of a wider campaign in South East London to improve early diagnosis in cancer and patients’ experience of care. The 2 films developed by MA Animation students were used to support GPs around prescribing oral nutritional supplements (to adult patients), and specialist infant formula (to paediatric patients) and help them prescribe the most clinically appropriate and cost-effective options.