NHS spent £100,000 on logo redesign

THE health service has spent more than £100,000 drawing up plans to make every trust move its NHS logo on stationery and signs, figures show.

Earlier this year NHS England issued a diktat ordering hundreds of organisations to rework their publicity materials, claiming that inconsistencies could be fuelling pressures on A&E units.

Under the new rules, every trust is told to place the NHS lozenge above the name of their organisation to reduce “confusion and concern” among the public.

Health officials said the move would cost just £23 per trust, because they were told to make changes only when stationery ran out or signs needed replacing.

But Freedom of Information disclosures reveal that NHS England spent £81,645 running focus groups and other “research fieldwork” and more than £30,000 on other costs and analysis.

Health officials failed to provide the figures until the Information Commissioner ordered their release to The Sunday Telegraph.

Much of the funding was spent on a market research company, which carried out 28 focus groups with members of the public, 1,000 interviews and nine workshops involving 100 communications officials.

A spokesman for NHS England claimed that inconsistencies in the format of the logo could result in “more people inappropriately defaulting to A&E”, although they did not elaborate on this claim.

An NHS England spokesman said: “The logo is sometimes fraudulently misused, and it is right to protect its use, but more generally also to ensure that the public are not confused about their local NHS services.”