When taking up the post I did not realise how much of my time would be taken up dealing with the press and news media.
As far as the local press was concerned, I spoke on most days with Philip Lymn the Evening Mail medical reporter. He was excellent at his job and we became good friends although we fell out on one or two occasions when the hospital was criticised.
Phillip was very knowledgeable, and I am certain he read the BMJ (British Medical Journal) and Lancet before most doctors.
I used to log all press calls and I averaged 12 calls a day.
I carried a bleep linked to the team on call for the day as I regularly received a call before the patient had arrived in MIU as the press listen in to police and ambulance radio frequencies so I could regularly brief the medical team from information received from the press.
I regularly did radio and television interviews and even knew the local BBC and ITV camera crews by their first names.
My record was 8 television interviews in a day including tf1 from Paris. That was before the first gulf war.
I also got involved with a number of programmes both tv and radio. When the soap “angels” was being produced I was approached to advise on the set designs and several of the Acci staff helped with the production.
A presenter Sue Jay did a series on television called “Jay Walking” and one of the episodes was filmed at the hospital.
I was also approached by “Woman’s Hour” and did a live half hour interview on the work of the burn’s unit.
Interviews were a regular part of my role
If you want to know why I did not get the medical staff to do the interviews, I regularly did and got very rude replies.
Although people criticize the press, I always found the local and national press very reasonable and I rarely had occasions to criticise.
However, I did on one occasion physically remove a photographer from The Sun from one of my wards who had sneaked in with one of the visitors.