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Posted on Apr 1 2022 by Fiona Bailey

March has unusually entertained every possible weather condition that the UK normally sees in an entire year, but that has not stopped the positive news stories coming out of St Andrew’s.

A particular highlight this month was St Andrew’s Consultant Psychiatrist Dr Alexei Titievski featuring on regional BBC programme Look East on the 16th.

Producers wanted to cover his efforts to support Ukraine which has dominated the headlines for most of the month.

Alexei was born in Ukraine and obviously upset by the war, was given a month away from the charity so he could facilitate the creation of four field hospitals in the conflicted country. The Chronicle and Echo and Northants Live also ran his incredibly inspiring story.

The beginning of the month kicked off with BBC Northampton covering the positive CQC Report for the Community Partnerships Service in its bulletins. The story was also picked up in the Business in the Midlands, Wellbeing News, TeaTalk Magazine, the Healthcare Newsdesk, Need To See it News and All Post News.

Off the back of that story, the External Communications team had been in touch with a client user, who admitted she had been struggling with the Ukraine headlines.

Nicola Crooks. who lives with complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD), has been using the Veterans’ Complex Treatment Service and agreed to share her story which was picked up in local newspapers Chronicle and Echo, The Lincolnite and in the national publication Charity Today.

Liz Ritchie, our resident media expert has once again, been giving her professional opinion on healthcare issues in national publications. This month she provided some insight to Stylist magazine about how people are struggling to get back to ‘normal’ now Covid restrictions have been lifted in the UK.

She was interviewed for a Mothers’ Day piece in Take a Break magazine about the positive benefits of motherhood. The red top magazine has a readership of nearly half a million people.

We reissued former builder Simon Austin’s Aspire story in March where he spoke about his passion for mental health nursing and that was covered in Northants Live.

Lesley Deacon, one of our most-longest serving members of staff, had her moment to shine when her story was published in the Chronicle and Echo and Charity Today celebrating her Ruby anniversary with the charity. The Nursing Times has also requested an interview with her, so watch this space.

Spreading our wings towards the end of the month, we managed to penetrate the press in Luton with Luton Today running the story we put out about how our veterans service helped bring a former solider “back to life”.

Phi Credland’s inspiring story, which also highlighted St Andrew’s signing the Armed Forces Covenant, was also picked up by Northants Live, Tea Talk Magazine, Business in the Midlands, South East Online, Healthcare Newsdesk, Wellbeing News, AllPost News, Daily Business Now, Business in the News, Charity Today and the Chronicle and Echo.