{"id":143325,"date":"2023-06-19T09:20:13","date_gmt":"2023-06-19T08:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/?p=143325"},"modified":"2023-06-16T15:20:48","modified_gmt":"2023-06-16T14:20:48","slug":"lessons-from-the-rights-and-wrongs-of-health-and-pharmaceutical-communications","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/lessons-from-the-rights-and-wrongs-of-health-and-pharmaceutical-communications\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons from the rights and wrongs of health and pharmaceutical communications"},"content":{"rendered":"

There have been plenty of challenges in health and pharmaceutical<\/a> reporting and communications over the last 30 years, with the last three being particularly tumultuous for those tasked with communicating both complex and constantly evolving news to the public. <\/strong><\/p>\n

At a Vuelio lunch held at the Gherkin last month, Channel 4\u2019s health and social care editor Victoria Macdonald shared the lessons to be learned from the good and bad of her 30-year career covering health and pharma.<\/p>\n

Read on for her thoughts on high-profile political flubs you won\u2019t want to replicate, the importance of ensuring any promises made can be met, and just how unhealthy misinformation can be to your audience.<\/p>\n

PR teams: prime your spokesperson properly<\/h2>\n

\u2018Looking back over the various points in my career and the exciting breakthroughs \u2013 the scandals, the pandemics \u2013 I would say that Covid was an interesting roller coaster.<\/p>\n

\u2018I was the journalist who asked Boris Johnson if he was still shaking hands. I wasn\u2019t actually trying to catch him out; I was genuinely interested. His reply was so astonishing \u2013 \u201cYes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am shaking hands,\u201d Johnson added. \u201cOnly last night I was in a hospital shaking hands with coronavirus patients.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018The chief medical officer and the chief scientific adviser went pale as they stood beside him. An hour or so later the Downing Street press office rang to say that of course he hadn\u2019t shaken hands with coronavirus patients.\u2019<\/p>\n

Promises must be met<\/h2>\n

\u2018My first interaction with the pharmaceutical industry, and whether it was making excessive profits at the sake of people\u2019s lives, was around reputation.<\/p>\n

\u2018I am thinking about a court case in 2001 in which the South African Government won against 39 pharmaceutical companies that had sued because of a provision that would have allowed the production and importation of generic drugs for HIV\/Aids. That case was dropped in the end because of national and international pressure.<\/p>\n

\u2018I was there reporting it and it was a momentous day \u2013 undermined by the Government actually failing to distribute drugs until they, too, were taken to court.\u2019<\/p>\n

Balance celebration with caution<\/h2>\n

\u2018There\u2019s news of another Alzheimer drug that can slow cognitive decline by 35%. And the quote was that this could be the beginning of the end of Alzheimer\u2019s disease. The thought is so thrilling and anyone in this room who has seen or is living with family members who have Alzheimer\u2019s knows what it\u2019s like to watch it happening in front of your eyes.<\/p>\n

\u2018This may be too late for our mothers or fathers or grandparents \u2013 but maybe it will be ok for us \u2013 I hope so.<\/p>\n

\u2018Yet this is another one of those announcements where you have to be so utterly cautious when reporting and communicating it. You want it to be a celebration, you absolutely want it to be the beginning of the end of Alzheimer\u2019s, but you have to tell your audience that there are many caveats.<\/p>\n

\u2018The last thing you want to do is rain on someone\u2019s parade, but neither do you want a relative ringing up and saying where is this drug, why can\u2019t my Mum have it now?\u2019<\/p>\n

Inoculate your audience against misinformation<\/h2>\n

\u2018That most wonderful moment nine months into the pandemic when the announcement of the first vaccines was made – we had had so many briefings early on in 2020 that no vaccine was in sight and then suddenly there really was.<\/p>\n

\u2018Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, said the Astra Zeneca vaccine\u2019s reputation had been battered by a toxic mix of misinformation, miscommunication, and mishaps.<\/p>\n

\u2018Yet there were trial problems \u2013 and reporting on these was very difficult because you didn\u2019t want to lose the excitement of such an important development, but had to give as much information as possible.<\/p>\n

\u2018There was a real change in communications during the pandemic. At first, Government press offices were slow to get up and going. But it got better very quickly.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Looking back on Covid \u2013 so much changed and yet also so little\u2019.<\/p>\n

For more about maintaining trust and communicating complex campaigns clearly in health and pharmaceutical sectors, download the Vuelio white paper \u2018Medical misinformation: How PR can stop the spread<\/a>\u2019. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At a Vuelio lunch held at the Gherkin last month, Channel 4\u2019s health and social care editor Victoria Macdonald shared the lessons to be learned from the good and bad of her 30-year career covering health and pharmaceuticals. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":423,"featured_media":143324,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7365,7272,3725,3729,7238],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143325"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/423"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143325"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":144162,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143325\/revisions\/144162"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}