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Text projected onto the Principality Stadium

Improving nursing care and patient safety

The challenge

There are not enough nurses to give patients across Wales the care they need.
Cowshed worked with RCN in Wales to deliver a highly visible lobbying campaign which demanded Welsh Government action to improve nursing care and patient safety.

A campaign backed by nurses and the public.

The idea

Nursing staff in Wales are one ‘team’, whether that’s on the ward or out in the community. Each one of us knows what it is to be part of a team. And without one crucial team member, everything could fall apart.

Instead of telling the public about understaffing issues, our creative showed the problem in a relatable situation using our core statistic that nursing staff in Wales are short of 1,719 staff members.

We set up a Welsh Government petition that asked people to sign to encourage a debate in the Senedd to extend section 25b of the Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Act 2016.

We needed 10k signatures to make this happen.

We played on the pride Wales has in its rugby and football teams to deliver our message: ‘Nursing staff in Wales are short of 1719 team members. Sign our petition to give Wales the full team of nurses we desperately need.’

To send a bold message to Members of the Senedd while capturing the attention of the public we set out to make RCN the first organisation in Wales to project a political message onto four iconic buildings across Cardiff, guerrilla style, including the Principality Stadium and The Senedd. We used images and video of the projections to secure media coverage and generate significant traction on social.

The result

  • 7,343 organic social media engagements (shares, RTs, likes, comments)
  • 282,797 social reach
  • 646,290 video views
  • 9,631 visits to campaign website
  • 22 pieces of media coverage
  • 7m opportunities to see
10k +

Signatures and a debate in the Senedd