Danish Health Minister Sophie Haestorp Anderson addressed the recent Global Forum on Incontinence in Copenhagen with a key note speech reflecting the Danish vision for a healthier Europe. As current holders of the EU presidency, Denmark is offering real leadership in resolving the problem of the increasing demand for healthcare provision outstripping the ability for nation states to continue to fund and supply it. ‘Smart Health:Better Life’ is a Danish policy of looking at the problem from a new, and technological driven perspective. Europe’s aging demographic means increasing healthcare costs, with fewer people of employment age to pay the bills. This conundrum may require some out of the box thinking. Older citizens are being asked to work longer, taxes will increase, and responsibility will shift to patients to manage their own health risk and pay as they use the public system. Technology must ultimately play its part. Much research and policy strategising is going on in Europe at the moment related to technology and aging. Not least via the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing, encouraging the private and public sectors to create a future where technology helps ease the burden – expect to see robots on a hospital ward near you very soon. ROAD is already working with some of these innovators.

Statin use is almost ubiquitous amongst the over 55s – and for good reason. There seems no easier, quicker way of reducing cholesterol levels and therefore reducing heart attack risk. Thing is, if you stop taking the pills, cholesterol levels will shoot up the very next day. So what? Doesn’t sound so hard to keep talking the pills. Mmmm – not always so easy – some folk suffer with side effects associated with their statin, such as myalgia (muscle pain to you and me)

ROAD Communications is fascinated by patient engagement and concordance / compliance issues. We build programmes to help patients and doctors better manage illness. We’re doing a piece of early exploratory work looking into the experience of people taking statins – if you are on a statin we’d be grateful if you were able to do our 5minute survey (but only if you are or have recently been on (last 12 months) a statin to control your cholesterol) – simply click here – https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/QXHZDP3

Many thanks

Louise Stone has joined ROAD as a Director. Louise was previously head of healthcare at Lexis PR where she led several large consumer accounts, including the seven-figure Boots contract. Louise has previously had stints at Ketchum Pleon, JCPR and Nexus Communications, working on health and consumer lifestyle accounts including Procter & Gamble, Nestlé, GlaxoSmithKline and Reckitt Benckiser.
ROAD’s focus has traditionally been with pharma clients, which currently include Pfizer, Beiersdorf, SCA International and a recently won brief from Anglian Pharma.
In a newly created director role, Louise will be expanding ROAD’s consumer health business, including our existing client base of over-the-counter, beauty, and food and nutrition clients.
ROAD’s MD Paul Jarman, said ‘One of Louise’s first tasks is to migrate our expertise and digital tools used in the patient engagement programmes we run for pharma clients, into the consumer business.’
Louise added, “In pharma, compliance is obviously key to effective treatment, but it’s an approach that is also highly relevant for consumer brands. Engaged, informed and motivated customers are more likely to use products correctly, achieve better results and recommend the brand.’
Read more @ PR Week – http://tinyurl.com/c2lq5ty

ROAD is pleased  to welcome Rachel Cunningham who has joined us as a programme manager working with the medical education and engagement team. Rachel comes to ROAD from Spire Healthcare where she supported consultants and regional hospitals with marketing and communications services.  Rachel Collum also joins ROAD as account executive working with the media team.

ROAD has been busy dealing with the media enquiries for the launch of assuredna, the first home DNA Paternity testing kit available in Boots. This morning Anglia DNA, manufacturers of assuredna, has received blanket media coverage across the UK. Results have included full pages and national debate on BBC 5Live, Daily Mail, Telegraph, Sun, and TV features on LK, ITN, Sky and BBC news – http://tinyurl.com/6ceolrx

ROAD has been preparing assuredna’s manufacturer, Anglia DNA, since October for the launch. A precise positioning was created, ensuring that Anglia DNA represented itself as the highly professional and regulated laboratory it is – fully regulated by UK authorities.

DNA testing has of course been previously linked with sensational shows like Tricia and Jeremy Kyle, which have tended to stereotype the reasons for, and recipients of, DNA paternity testing.

ROAD presented the case for the responsible use of DNA testing and the fact that demand for testing was usually the outcome of a much longer thought process.

The big news being that for the first time, consumers have nationwide access to a trusted UK based testing service via the high street.

Some families are uncertain about the paternity of their children, and every year in the UK the father’s name is left blank on approximately 50,000 birth certificates.  Research has estimated that 1 in 25 assumed ‘fathers’ in the UK are actually not the biological father. The assuredna paternity test is designed to simply and accurately resolve uncertainty over paternity.

“Every paternity issue is different, but for the majority of cases, families receive the results they were expecting,” says Dr Mandy Hartley, technical manager at Anglia DNA, manufacturer of assuredna. “assuredna provides families with peace of mind so they can move on with their lives. Around half of all tests we conduct are related to children under 12 months, helping confirm paternity before the child has matured and is fully aware.”

After 33 years and almost 11 billion miles, Voyager 1, the fridge-sized space probe with a radio nailed on top, has reached the edge of the solar system. Using only brown paper and string it has recorded that the particle streams emanating from the Sun have reached zero velocity and are now gently moving sideways. So it’s the end of the line, the edge of the sun’s power, a freezing cold limbo at the boundary of the heliosphere. The next step – unkown interstellar space!

 Imagine that. Imagine sitting on that rusty fridge and contemplating that next step. After 33 years of dutifully sticking to your task, sending back radio reports, rolling along at 17km/s using only the power from two AAA batteries. And now they want you to go further, to step into the real unknown, to cross the inky black Rubicon. Will God be there? Will there be life out there? And will it have ears to listen to the golden record that Carl Sagan slipped inside the freezer shelf of our heroic fridge?

 And guess what Carl put on this Milk Way mix-tape?….. some pictures of our DNA, diagrams of how we humans reproduce, tunes by Chuck Berry and a message from President Jimmy Carter. And what a message….

 “This is a present from a small, distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours.”

 Not so upbeat is it? C’mon Jimmy, in the last 33 years we’ve discovered and mapped the entire human genome, practically beaten cancer, discovered nuclear power wasn’t such a bad idea after all, and Matt won the X Factor. How about that? Push on son.

Interstellar anyone? Or are you more of a real ale fan?