Re Media Response
It's all a question of timing.
The media get an embargoed copy of reports like this the day before - or
at least an embargoed press release or briefing.
They go to press that night or run it during the day depending on the
timing of the embargo.
To be in time to be picked up by the media any comments from BAEM/ FAEM
need to be out while the journalists are writing their pieces not in
response to them.
I checked the BAEM website for press releases severl times during the day
yesterday and as far as I could tell the press release only went up late
in the evening by which time the story had run and was effectively over.
The BBC quoted Peter Hawker from the BMA not because he knows anything
about A&E but because the BMA had a press release out before lunchtime
yesterday.
Later in the day several TV news programs ran pieces including interviews
with A&E Consultants. I saw Annie Maginnis and someone from one the of
the many London Hospitals with Middlesex in its title. Both came accross
very well and helped our cause.
But like Francis I would have liked to see John Heyworth or Ian Anderson
being interviewed and rebutting the suggestion that it is all our fault
because we have 10% more doctors than a few years ago and still waits are
longer.
My suggestions -
Next time there is something big related to A&E don't write the press
release by committee. Look at how the BMA constructs its press releases.
Use the same format - it works. Get the press secretary to write it and
the president to clear it. If they make a cock-up we can vote them out
but in the meantime they must have the authority to act alone.
Learn to cold call the key media people.
That means ring BBC health correspondents, ITN, Channel 4 etc. Ring the
Health correspondents of the Broadsheets.
These people know their stuff and they like to be phoned by people with
something to say. A quote from a BAEM or FAEM spokesman is likely to be
used if they git it in time.
Francis says that "it was left to the opposition spokesman on health to
fight our corner". The politicians are briefed by those who bother to
contact them. Both Liam Fox and Evan Harris are receptive to detailed
technical background information.
When did BAEM last meet with either?
Andrew Hobart
Francis Andrews wrote:
> The list seems to have ben silent regarding the publication of the
> latest audit commission report on A&E so here goes.
>
> Yet again, there seems to have been an absence of anyone 'influential'
> from the A&E world defending our speciality in the media against some
> of the inaccuracies of the audit commission report. I listened to BBC
> radio 4 on the morning of the report publication and it was left to
> the opposition spokesman on health to fight our corner and state that
> departments were under pressure because there just simply are not
> enough beds in the rest of the hospital, which jams up departments. In
> other news bulletins on the TV and on the web, I didn't see any one
> from BAEM or a senior (A&E, not gen. medicine) consultant etc being
> interviewed. The Andrew Foster from the audit commission told radio 4
> that really, it was poor 'micro' management that was at fault, I think
> implying the departments themselves-this is echoed throughout in the
> report. Buried away in the report is the odd admission that actually
> if all the cubicles in A&E are full, then it is very diifficult to
> assess new patients. The report feels that this is only a problem
> occaisionally-more like everyday in most departments surely.
>
> The press statement on the BAEM website is watery and I think that yet
> again, a major opportunity to publicly fight our corner from within
> the speciality has been lost. Those in infuence within the speciality
> must have known that this report was coming out and a vigorous and
> very public defence should have been mounted. If this wasn't thought
> to be necessary given the report's highly critical main findings, then
> perhaps the report is right and we as a speciality just cannot get our
> act together, whether thrombolysing the right patients or organising
> staffing. Any one else feel mounting despair out there?
>
> Francis Andrews FFAEM
> Liverpool
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