Welcome to the first Aurora Update of 2008, designed to give a bit of gossip about developments here in Camden. Aurora had its second birthday at the end of 2007; no longer a newcomer, we have grown our base of great clients and enlarged our team. We hope that the New Year promises similar developments.

Aurora was saddened by the recent fire at Camden market. The Aurora office is a ten minute walk from the market so we were unscathed, however, many people had their livelihoods significantly damaged - we wish the stall owners and the staff at the Hawley Arms (one of our favourite boozers) well and hope normal business resumes soon.

2008 sees two new staff join Aurora: Chiara Charkham and Siân Hurst. Chiara (left) joins as an Account Director from Ogilvy Health PR, where she worked for two years on Novartis CNS and AstraZeneca oncology accounts. Prior to Ogilvy, Chiara worked with Aurora co-founder and Managing Director, Neil Crump, at Athena Medical PR. Chiara has seven years experience in healthcare communications.

Siân joins Aurora after 11 years at Huntsworth Health, most recently as Client Services Director. Siân has worked across a number of therapeutic areas, including respiratory, oncology, gastroenterology, anti-infectives, musculoskeletal and men's health. She joins Aurora as Associate Director with a remit of helping the agency's clients achieve their vision.

Aurora's crystal ball. As you may be aware, Aurora analyses the national healthcare news on a monthly basis to produce the ‘Aurora top 20', a ranking-based chart that investigates what health issues have moved and shaken the national newspapers each month. Click here to see the latest issue.

To wrap up 2007, Aurora held a brainstorm to analyse data collected from April to December to see what media trends and patterns could be identified and to discuss what this might mean for the media healthcare environment in 2008.

A key issue that emerged in 2007 was public health and all things relating to personal responsibility for well-being.  Nutrition as a health topic gained widespread and consistent coverage, perhaps because it is seen as an easy-to-implement preventative approach for the public.

Looking at the political healthcare environment, it is interesting to speculate about how the media will react to the government's vision for NHS reform in 2008 and beyond. Politicians have a tricky course to steer: Increased rationing of medicines and services, combined with an increased need for public health initiatives, which may be seen as ‘nanny-state' tactics, are difficult for the public to swallow and even more difficult for politicians to communicate when their seats might be at risk. However, many involved in healthcare policy believe that this is the direction the NHS must go if state-provided healthcare is to continue. Will the media get behind these moves and help communicate the rationale to the public, building understanding of reform, or alternatively, will the media beat the entitlement drum and continue to demand cradle-to-grave care for all?

Undoubtedly the 60th birthday of the NHS will gain widespread coverage, with the media reflecting upon the provision of services and the future of care, but whether the hook is used to bash, or praise the brilliance of, the NHS remains to be seen. It is hard to see the media being solely favourable towards the UK healthcare system, but perhaps the government will try to counter-balance this by furthering proposals about devolved responsibility and giving control of care to patients and practitioners at a local level.

Aurora anticipates that ‘designer drugs' will appear in the national press even more in 2008 and biotech issues will start to creep up the chart. With R&D pipelines indicating less blockbusters and more tailored medicines, Aurora predicts that national health journalists will have to steer away from the ‘big issues' like heart disease and shift attention to rarer diseases to find newsworthy content. Whilst this move is likely to be gradual, it will mean that industry communicators will have to deliver increasingly complicated messages to the media and work even harder to ensure they are covered in a balanced way that helps relevant readers understand the information and avoids worrying those who are not affected by the condition.

Of course the media's coverage of health topics is not fixed or pre-determined; agendas can be influenced by outbreaks, breakthroughs, topics escalating/evolving and increased journalist understanding of a given disease, drug or issue. Communicating with vision to national healthcare journalists can ensure that issues relating to your agenda align with that of the publication. To find out how Aurora can help you cut through the noise, or make some noise of your own, speak to Neil Crump or Claire Eldridge on 020 7424 7940.

© Aurora 2008

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