Weeknote 14: thinking about NHS merch

I was thinking about paper again but in the context of digital fatigue and how we might still raise awareness of screening even when a digital tool is absent.

It always seemed strange to me that the NHS has no merch or official museum (the 2015 Sportsbanger t-shirt doesn’t count). Not because it should spend money on toys and mugs, but because physical objects and cultural institutions give an organisation a slightly different space in your life. A lighter space that prepares you for the moment you really need them.

So I thought I’d imagine what a kind of merch I might enjoy getting. It’s the end of the year, so my mind drifted to yearly calendars and agendas. It would be fun if I could put in my age in the NHS app and get a universal-ish printable calendar with a couple of obvious prompts and a hint of what kind of screening programmes I might hear from this year. And then you just hang it on your fridge, add some manual reminders if you like, but it’s quietly just there, reminding you that things are coming. Eventually, the NHS will help us all and the real world needs more reminders of this I think.