How to become a press officer: Alice's story

Alice: I'm Alice. I'm 25 and I'm a press officer. The ambulance service is a big, busy organisation and lots of people are interested in what we're doing and what we're up to. We kind of act as the spokespeople for the trust. In the event of a major incident, the public will look to emergency services like ourselves for advice and safety information. We are there to give out the messages and to tell people what they need to know. It's really important that we keep on top of what news stories are out there that mention the North West Ambulance Service and so we know what's going on nationally with NHS England.

"Nine pound prescription fee puts patients at risk."

Alice's colleague: "Some volunteers rescuing climber after quarry fall. But we also went as well."

Alice: So when we’ve got a specific message that we want to promote, we can do like a campaign. One example is Hero Next Door, which was a campaign to try and recruit extra volunteers for the ambulance service. After a week we’d had that many applicants that we had to reign it in, because the team just couldn't manage how many people were signing up.

When a campaign is really successful like that, it's a fantastic feeling to know that people are listening to the messages that you're trying to tell them.

We use social media as a way that we can speak to the public and get our messages out there.

Speaker at the event: I want to wish you all a Happy Nurses Day. You’re all amazing.

Alice: Aw Jo was really good. Well I’ll chop up the video and I'll use it on Instagram and social media.

Alice's colleague Sarah: Alice is brilliant to work with, she's a really positive lovely proactive member of the team and she does a brilliant job. We couldn't do it without her.

Alice: I knew I wanted to work in communications and I've always wanted to work in the public sector, in particular the NHS. So I looked on NHS Jobs and kept an eye out for interesting jobs that came up. One of the main skills that I use in my job is writing, so English at school was really useful and also Media Studies. Just get out there, see what companies might offer work experience opportunities. Even if they don't advertise it, ring them up and ask them. There’s lots of different organisations that have press officers that you might not even realise. The reason I love my role is because I know that the message that I'm putting out there on social media, on the press releases are really positive and they're going to make a really important difference to people's lives.