With over half of National Health Service (NHS) workers suffering from poor mental health in the UK and one in four workers having considered suicide, this film underlines how, in many cases, NHS staff are sicker than the patients they are treating.

The use of the CCTV footage technique allows the audience to experience the distressing reality of a space that they have previously not had access to, through a composition of moments, recreated based on real anecdotes from frontline healthcare workers.

This film technique was integral in landing the depth of the issue that Frontline19 exists to solve.

The National Health Service (NHS) has been offering free universal healthcare to all citizens across the United Kingdom for close to 75 years.

Adored by the British public, the service is a source of great national pride and acts as a pillar of equality within the UK, providing free healthcare for all, regardless of wealth or status.

It has always been there for us, whenever we need it. And we’re fiercely defensive of it.

But decades of budget cuts, staff shortages and privatization have taken their toll.

NHS staff are chronically neglected.

The UK's largest survey of the mental health & wellbeing of all NHS staff found that at its best, over half of the NHS frontline workforce is suffering with poor mental health, and at its worst, 30% showed symptoms reflective of probable post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

(NHScheck.org, 2020-2023)

This campaign was developed to shine a light on the scale of the issues plaguing the NHS in order to highlight the need to support those working within it.

Frontline19 exists to provide the interim solution, by providing free psychological support to people working on the frontline. So the primary aim of this campaign was to raise funding so that they could continue to provide vital support to NHS staff.

Secondly, with a general election taking place later this year, the campaign aims to raise awareness of the issue of NHS welfare, and encourage the public to vote with the issue in mind in order to enact lasting change.

This film presents the distressing reality of a space that the audience has previously not had access to, allowing them to glimpse heartbreaking moments, recreated based on real anecdotes from frontline healthcare workers.

The film opens on security footage of a Paramedic looking into the back of an ambulance

in shock. From here on out, we see a montage of NHS workers breaking down, in spaces where they believe they are alone and nobody can witness their true emotional state.

The film captures staff breaking down outside hospital rooms before composing themselves,

a nurse suffering from an anxiety attack in the back alley of a hospital, staff shaking from the shock of the scenes they have witnessed and employees being abused by patients.

Towards the end of the film, we see healthcare workers putting on a brave face and getting back to work as if nothing is wrong.

The British public operates under the assumption that the NHS is an infallible institution that will continue to exist to provide free healthcare for all, indefinitely, as an unwavering right.

It is a cornerstone of British society. However, with over 50% of NHS workers suffering with mental

health issues and 1 in 4 experiencing suicidal thoughts, workers are on the brink.

The problem to be solved with this brief was therefore twofold:

We needed to raise awareness for this problem with the British public who are broadly unaware of

this issue in order to push this up the election agenda, and secondly, we needed to raise funds to continue to run programs and offer the free counseling that the frontline workers are in desperate need of.

This campaign aims to raise funds for Frontline19 to enable them to expand their resources and deliver training to more and more NHS workers.

We’d tried more existing tracks than we’d like to admit, before turning to a composer. Whilst many of the tracks we’d tried added great emotion, they also took something away from the authenticity of the film. Making it feel more like an ad. When the first composition came back, we quickly knew that this was the way to go. Its minimalism made the film more real and believable. Whilst the delicate but constant tone of real medical equipment added relevance and a feeling of place.

Sound design was also key, matching the quality of the audio with the low quality of the CCTV.

We kept everything minimal, trying not to add any untrue emotion to the scenes. Keeping everything raw allowed the awful reality of each scene to land in a way that didn’t feel forced, without us trying to tell people how they should feel about this.