04 Going viral


Annabelle Collins, Health Service Journal senior correspondent, reveals what it was like to work at the sharp-end as a specialist during the pandemic.


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t the beginning of March staff at the Health Service Journal (HJS) were told to expect to


dedicate the next three weeks to coronavirus coverage. A colleague was appointed ‘coronavirus correspondent’. It was not much later that we were all sent to work at home and the enormity of the situation began to sink in. HSJ takes pride in not geting scooped when it comes to all things NHS, even by the national press. But this time the competition was like nothing we had experienced before – we were chasing the same story as not only every other health correspondent in the world, but every news journalist too. We had to move fast and dig into our expertise, which gave us an edge when reporting a pandemic of this scale. We were now a Covid-specialist publication and told to only chase stories about the virus. Our editor decided to bring down the pay wall.


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We were breaking important stories and uncovering new information that needed to be read. We also had to ensure we did not dilute our content for our regular readers – NHS leaders and managers who are experiencing the pandemic first-hand. What intelligence could we add for them? We spoke to as many regional and national contacts as possible. Te strong links we had already established in NHS leadership undoubtedly gave us a reporting edge. People trusted us with information, tips and leaked documents. Nearly all our stories were picked


up by the national media. I think everyone in the team felt the responsibility of our role reporting the unprecedented impact Covid-19 had on the NHS and its workforce. Some stories will stay with us


forever. We were the first publication to reveal the detailed clinical model for the first Nightingale Hospital in London, published plans to dilute nursing staffing ratios as never seen before and break news of the first


critical incident relating to Covid in a London hospital. We were also one of the first specialist publications to be asked on to the daily government briefing. However, what benefited our reporting more was regularly speaking to high-level NHS contacts and looking beyond the government’s press releases. And then the testing debacle. We


broke the news that on the day of the deadline the government changed the way it counted the number of Covid-19 tests in order to hit the target of 100,000. Te story was brought up in the daily briefing but was denied by the government. We stuck to our guns. During our coverage of the pandemic we experienced our highest day of traffic ever, with almost 300,000 users visiting our specialist site. Tis was remarkable to see, but we are now adapting our coverage again as the health service is adapting again. However, we know Covid-19 is unlikely to disappear from our news lists any time soon.


UJ Extra, the union’s welfare charity, has extended its package for those affected by Covid-19 until August. Find out the latest news and how to donate or apply for aid: htps://bit.ly/2ZUqisi Te charity’s lawyers, Tompsons, provide a debt support service for free to all members.


COVID-19


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