Public Health Wales spends nearly £5,000 reminding fans at Wrexham games to wash hands

Almost £5,000 was spent by Public Health Wales on reminding football fans in Wrexham to wash their hands last season, according to new figures.

Digital advertising vans were spotted close to the Racecourse Ground on two occasions during Wrexham AFC’s successful promotion winning campaign in League Two, however Public Health Wales say they were there five times.

One was pictured displaying the Welsh caption “Ych a fi”, a phrase used to describe something disgusting, followed by advice stating “Don’t give germs the advantage on match days.”

Wrexham.com decided to request details of the spend and purpose of the advertising campaign after members of the public raised questions with us over the ‘odd’ campaign, with one describing it as ‘jumping on the bandwagon’.

FOI figures shared by PHW, which aims to “protect and improve health and wellbeing” in Wales, show a total of £4,750 was spent on the digital advertising vans.

In its response, PHW said: “The advertising vans were present on five occasions. On each occasion they displayed ads to promote handwashing as a way to prevent common illnesses.

“This was part of a national, mass media, whole population campaign. Digital advertising vans placed in high footfall locations are an effective means of reaching a large number of people with a clear message.”

The campaign appeared to, as usual, skip the independent media sector in Wales with other titles across Wales noting they were not approached to either run paid or unpaid messaging on the topic so was unlikely to be national, mass media nor ‘whole population’.