Our campaign was inspired by our supporters, who told us that travelling while living with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) can be a big source of stress. So we teamed up with Takeda to help improve the day-to-day experience for those living with IBD in our Travel with IBD campaign, which has won the Communique Excellence in Healthcare Collaboration and Partnerships award.
It’s a real honour to receive the award for our Travel with IBD campaign raising awareness that not every disability is visible. It’s a huge testament to the strength of the campaign and the excellent collaborative working between Crohn’s & Colitis UK, Aurora Healthcare Communications and Takeda. This success would not have been possible without our supporters and the IBD community, so this award is for them.
Andy McGuiness
Campaigns Manager, Crohn's & Colitis UK
Travel with IBD mobilised the travel industry to install new accessible toilet signage, raising awareness that not every disability is visible, and making a real difference to people living with Crohn's and Colitis.
People living with Crohn's and Colitis may not look unwell but are often affected by symptoms that affect all aspects of their lives. We are really impressed by the response of these travel hubs, which will provide additional wellbeing and support to many travellers.
Dan McLean
Director of Marketing and Communications, Crohn's & Colitis UK
The aim was to introduce new signage across the UK’s main travel hubs (airports, rail stations, service stations) to help people with Crohn's and Colitis when they travel, and raising public awareness of invisible illnesses.
This was strong collaboration and very easy to see the benefits of the partnership for everyone involved. The team had clearly defined intent and goals, and everyone came together to come up with a joint working programme with influences from both side. It was great, collaborative work!
Communique Judges
Our amazing supporters sent 48,784 campaign emails and nine travel hubs had committed to adopting accessible toilet signage by the end of 2017.
The campaign is still going on, and more travel hubs are still coming on board.
