The healthcare industry is quite often accused of ‘lagging behind’ in terms of adopting social media. This perhaps a little unfair, as companies working in financial services – and many other industries – are in the same position, largely due to regulatory issues.

Late last year, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) held a two-day conference to discuss this very subject, as well as the implications of the internet and social media on health. At the time, many were concerned that the notion that leveraging the web to work with people was “too important not to get right” would be used as an excuse to do nothing.

NHS Direct has blazed a trail in terms of showing what can be done, but as referenced in a new survey from NHS Salford, it seems that still only a third (36%) of the 148 Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) in England were found to be active on Facebook, and 28% on Twitter.

While Facebook commands an average of 200 friends, Twitter manages to attract an average of 400, with the latter also seeing fewer inactive accounts. 88% of the accounts found on Twitter had been updated within the past six weeks, compared to just 60% on Facebook.

NHS Salford, one of the first to start using social media actively within the NHS, found that the large majority of PCTs use social media to highlight and promote health information online, with NHS Choices gaining the largest profile from this. While the larger a following a PCT has the more likely they are going to use social media to complement their engagement activities; with some trusts actively asking for comment and views on a range of services.

NHS Salford’s Head of Comms, Karl Brookes, said: “Good communication has always been about using the appropriate channels at the right time to reach the right people. Clearly social media is one of these channels and Twitter, Facebook and Youtube have been around long enough to ensure it’s not just a fad.”

NHS Salford is also offering its own advice to other PCTs on how maintain a presence in social, including remaining active on social media, proactive outreach in terms of adding people to your Facebook page and following the etiquette.

Interestingly, it also suggest managing ’staff breakaways’, as multiple accounts can be confusing and can allow negative/positive comment to go unnoticed. This is in fairly direct contrast to the way many successful B2C businesses build their online presence, but could be the way to control concern surrounding unregulated advice/content being distributed.