All the front page headlines surrounding the Superbug crisis highlights show how important it is to communicate properly in a crisis.

That particular NHS Trust is going to have to work extremely hard over the next few years to recover its reputation and restore the public's trust. While no amount of crisis media training could avert the media barrage, we believe that it would have helped at least in terms of damage limitation.

Act promptly in a Crisis

In terms of communication - the politicians will certainly act almost immediately and in the most vociferous terms, so it's vital that you control the message that comes out of your organisation.

It is obviously clear that an organisation's voice needs to be heard, in a times of extreme crisis to respond to specific allegations.

While we are not saying that crisis media training would solve all your problems, but it is clearly important for Hospitals and NHS Trusts to respond quickly, effectively and honestly to the sheer weight of media, political and public criticism.

We believe that it is vital to "lance the wound" in the early part of a crisis of this nature in order to maintain the long-term reputation of Hospitals and Trusts to prevent irretrievable damage.

By this we mean an early statement, followed by a human presence, preferably clinical and from the Hospital, facing the media at an organised press conference and answering all questions.

Yes, it would have been a totally unpleasant experience. But it needed to be done to at least be seen by the public, your customers, to care enough to respond, instead of hiding behind anonymity and bureaucracy.

In reality it doesn't really matter what you say when the odds are so heavily stacked against you (within reason). The very fact that someone cares enough to stand up and be counted a David and Goliath scenario with the ranked masses of the media at a press conference playing Goliath to a single medical spokesperson on a podium shows the public, your customers, that mistakes may well have been made, but you are not prepared to hide when the going gets tough.

This kind of bravery needs preparation and training. We are experienced at providing it and our satisfied NHS customers believe in it.

Very often the act of expressing deep regret, saying sorry and meaning it, allied to an airing of the real facts goes some way to protecting your long term reputation.

Doing nothing clearly does not work. The allegations will just keep coming.

We believe that in this sort of crisis you need to do the following things in order to preserve your long-term reputation. Act quickly and decisively.

• Prepare a spokesperson from the Hospital or the Trust preferably medical.
• Apologise show a human face.
• Try and get the facts across that clearly what happened was unacceptable, that changes will definitely be made.
• Try and communicate that the most important thing is to restore public confidence in healthcare services by this management team or another! (The long-term reputation of the Trust is more important than individuals.)

Our message to the NHS for the last ten years has been to take crisis communication very, very seriously " in advance of crises " before the horse has bolted! Fail to prepare prepare to fail!!

In fairness many NHS Trusts, PCTs and SHAs do this and believe in this. But our point is that everyone needs to do this " because you can't predict when it will be your turn next.

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