A lot of talk about NHS comms
I’m not sure sure that showing pictures on the news of busy ICUs or Ambulance queues will convince the naysayers and covid deniers of anything
They would still say it was staged or a hoax
Of course we need robust and honest information
But having a communications strategy based purely on images to fight the conspiracy theorists and covid hoaxers is a recipe for disaster
What we need is a high profile, properly funded public health campaign, but perhaps more than that we need ...
To accept that nhs isnt t a film set and patient confidentiality is important
Everyone says they love the NHS - show it by following advice
When working in nhs Comms I always took the view that media access and cooperating with media requests was important, this was often unpopular and at times I was a ‘lone voice’ often fighting both medics and the ‘corporate’ NHS side of things on the issue
And I think most health or other journalists who know me will say that I was fair and arranged access where others refused
One thing I never did was to forget it was a hospital/clinic/etc and patients were at the centre of it all