Published: 28/02/2002, Volume II2, No. 5794 Page 16 17
Lynda Sawers can strip, clean and reassemble a pistol inside a few minutes. She can even fire it if she has to.
Not that packing some serious metal is usually part of the skills set of health service managers.
But in her new job, it might be a comforting thought.
Ms Sawers, 35, faces a tough challenge. She has just been appointed the first ever corporate communications manager for the Scottish Executive health department.
It will be her job to improve the often icy relationship between the department and Scotland's NHS trusts, unified boards and other health bodies. She will also be responsible for internal communications within the health department, and between the department and the other areas of the Scottish Executive.
There may be tough times ahead, but Ms Sawers has solid experience to call on. Not only does she know what it is like from the other side - her last job was public relations and communications manager at Lothian primary care trust - she also has interests outside work which almost put her NHS work in the shade.
As a flight lieutenant in the Royal Auxiliary Airforce, she has been involved with NATO exercises in Poland and Cyprus and off Portugal. Last October she spent two weeks in Oman, taking part in an enormously sensitive British military exercise as tensions were growing in the buildup to the war on terrorism.
'I am part of a PR squadron, a reserve unit of about 20 people, working in peacetime and in conflict. The minimum requirement is 28 days' training a year, so it takes up most of my holidays. It is interesting and challenging and I do enjoy it. But the thought that I could be called up at any time does make me pay more attention than most to world events.'
Ms Sawers says she wasn't particularly nervous to be going to Oman just weeks after the 11 September atrocities, though she concedes that her family and friends back home were a little worried. Indeed, the intense military and political activity in the Middle East at the time brought her new opportunities.
'We were involved in Tony Blair's visit and I actually interviewed him as part of the training exercise, ' she says. 'He said to me that we were among the best armed forces in the world, which made us all feel very proud.'
Displaying a remarkable sense of calm, she describes how she learned that the US had started bombing Afghanistan while she was still in Oman. 'It was my turn to use the internet to e-mail home and somebody had left the BBC Six O'clock News on and it said the bombing had started. I just thought, right, I'll finish my half hour on the internet then go and tell everyone.'
Ms Sawers believes that the leadership and practical training aspects of her other life are a big help when facing the day-to-day challenges of being a health service communicator.
'It is about logic and common sense, ' she says. 'It also develops leadership and responsibility. For example, as an officer, if I have non-commissioned people with me, I am responsible for their lives.'
A weekend away training, exhausting though it may be, also helps her to relax and keep in good shape. 'I am no GI Jane but I am quite fit, ' she says.
Just how difficult her new job will be was shown last month.
One tabloid newspaper reported, in what is a fairly typical exchange, that first minister Jack McConnell was livid because the Scottish Executive had not been told of a salmonella outbreak which had killed three patients at the Victoria Infirmary, Glasgow.
On the other hand, the hospital insisted that it had informed the department through the usual (public health) channels. The rights and wrongs of who communicated with whom and when will probably never be known. But the fact that the debate was played out on the pages of the Sunday Mail speaks volumes.
'I do not want to comment on specific cases, ' says Ms Sawers, who took up post on 4 February.
'But in general terms, It is easy to knock communications when something goes wrong. When something goes right, nobody's likely to say that was because the communications worked well.'
Her previous job brought its own challenges, however. In her time at the Edinburgh-based PCT, she helped mastermind the communications aspects of building a new medium-secure unit for mentally disordered offenders on the site of the Royal Edinburgh Hospital.The usual sensitivities of such a strategy were heightened by the siting of the unit - right next to the perimeter fence of a prep school. Still, they pulled it off with the minimum of community alarm, so much so that she and the senior planning manager were asked to share their experience when a similar unit was planned in the west of Scotland.
But what about the new job? 'I see a key part of the role as providing support to NHS communicators. I want to know what training and resources they need and to make a bridge between the service and the department.
'I can bring a service perspective to this, which I think will be helpful, and I'll be working with people in the health department and working with colleagues in NHS Scotland.'
That is only a small part of it.Ms Sawers will also have to forge better communications links with other departments in the Scottish Executive which have a bearing on health. That means anything from housing and social justice to education and, of course, finance.
She will also have to improve internal communications within the health department itself and ensure that a clear message is sent out to the public. Is she daunted?
'I have to be realistic. It is not possible for one person to transform communications. But I think the fact that the post is there now sends out a positive message.'
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