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Contacting the media
How to spread the word about Nursing the Future
 Contact
your employer’s press officers and tell them about our campaign
- Refer them to this website - with past articles and information
they can use to flag up what modern day nursing is all about. Download
further PDFs at www.nursing-standard.co.uk/nursingthefuture
(page opens in new browser window).
- Encourage them to write an article for your in-house
magazine or write a press release aimed at getting your local papers
involved.
- Go directly to your local paper – contact the news
desk or features desk and use key facts from our past research to get
them to focus on the real world of nursing today. Some facts (below)
may grab their attention or provide a good story hook How about contacting
your local radio station? You can get contact details via the BBC’s
website at: www.bbc.co.uk/england/radindex
(page opens in new browser window).
- Tell them about your work and your own experiences –
say you are willing to be interviewed
- Contact your chief executive, MP or another key local
figure or even celebrity – would they like to shadow you at work?
Or be interviewed with you?
- You can start small – perhaps organize a small seminar
or staff meeting to alert your colleagues to the campaign. They might
be keen to help you spread the word.
- Encourage other nurses to come forward and help you.
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 Garrett
Bright, one of Nursing Standard’s campaign ambassadors, has
used this formula to get local press and radio coverage. He said:
'The response has been overwhelming and we are getting really good
coverage in the local media. I have received good feedback from
the public, one of my mothers friends explained that she did not
know that nurses had a formal education until she read an article
in the paper.
'SUCCESS! It’s working – I have managed
to inform the public of the nursing image. This has been so simple
to do! Any nurse can do it,get out there and speak to your publics,
internally and externally to your organisation!’
Garrett suggests these facts could grab journalists’
attention:
- Branding experts believe it is time for nursing
to get an image make-over. They believe the image of the profession
is too ‘Skoda’ and needs to move into the professional
fast lane. That is why Nursing Standard agazine has launched a
campaign to try to change the image of nursing and midwifery for
the 21st century.
- 94%of nurses are proud of the job they do and the
number one reason they stay in their job is patients! That is
according to a recent survey of over 1,300 nurses by Nursing Standard
magazine.
- Today’s nurses are paid better than people
think. Now their salary range starts at £16,000 and can
go up to £107,000 (chief executive of NHS Trust).
- Almost 100 years since her death, Florence Nightingale
is still the most high profile nurse in Britain, results from
a MORI poll (Jan 2003) showed. Now it is time for the public to
see what real modern-day nursing is all about.
- Nurses today want to move on from the stereotypical
and fictional images of the sex kitten bedside babe as portrayed
by Babs Windsor,or battleaxe matron personified by Hattie Jacques.
Today ’s nurses work in a variety of different settings and
are keen for the public to learn more about what they do.
- Today’s nurses are better qualified than people
believe. In a MORI poll published this year, almost 20 per of
the British public thought qualified nurses had no formal nursing
qualifications! They get confused between nurses and health care
assistants.
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