Cold Weather Plan
Dee Cotgrove , Exec Head Comms, Met Office
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Cold Weather Alert
• Alerts issued when:
• the weather could increase the health risks to
vulnerable patients and / or disrupt the delivery of
services
• Alerts based on either:
• Cold weather temperature threshold
• Risk of widespread ice and / or heavy snow
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2012/13 Cold Weather Plan
Distribution of Cold Weather
Alerts
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Age UK
publications
Age UK
Joint PR
Integrate information
about the alerts into
Spread the Warmth
campaign materials
Reciprocal
guest blogs
Information &
advice line
Display joint
branded posters
Distribute alerts to
Local Age UKs
Public and
professional websites
Local Age UKs
Local case studies
Local PR
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Reciprocal
social media
messages
Localised social media messages
Evaluation
Winter 2011/12
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Cold Weather Alerts Issued
Cold weather temperature
threshold
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Does your organisation forward the Cold
Weather Alerts to front line staff and other
organisations?
Source: HPA - Evaluation Report - Cold Weather Plan for England 2011-12
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How helpful was the CWP in aiding your
actions during the Level 3 when it was
activated last winter?
Source: HPA - Evaluation Report - Cold Weather Plan for England 2011-12
Press releases
25,128 views
www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/coldweat
heralert/
Web page 1,722,888 views
This page links to Age UK website
PR and social media analysis
Reach of media
coverage:
29,977,744
Not including the
number of views
our press
releases had on
the website
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Questions & answers
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Cold Weather Plan - role of
the Met Office
• Provide meteorological input and other appropriate
assistance to DH for development of Cold Weather
Plan.
• Monitor weather conditions and issue Cold Weather
Alerts as required, to agreed recipients, from
November 1st – March 31st
• Work with BBC and others to ensure consistent
media messaging and provide support for press
releases, interviews and briefings.
• Met Office Public Weather Service Advisors engage
with Cat 1 responders in the event of a cold weather
event to ensure they are fully briefed and are clear
on actions to take.
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Communications evaluation
What worked well?
• Coordinated approach was very successful in getting messages out
quickly in the event of an alert being issued
• The campaign received some high profile media coverage
• Message penetration in media coverage was excellent
• Good volume of localised coverage reported back to us by Age UK
• Lots of discussion about the alerts taking place on Facebook and
Twitter
What didn’t work so well?
• The timings of the alerts made it difficult for Age UK to respond in time
to get radio adverts out (unfortunately this couldn’t be rectified)
• Risk of Cold Weather Alert fatigue – alerts were thought to be too
frequent
• Messages needed refining – too many messages on the joint branded
poster
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