1. © Crown copyright Met Office Cold Weather Plan Dee Cotgrove, Exec Head Comms, Met Office

2. © Crown copyright Met Office 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

3. 2012/13 Cold Weather Plan

4. Distribution of Cold Weather Alerts © Crown copyright Met Office

5. Information & advice line Joint PR Reciprocal social media messages Integrate information about the alerts into Spread the Warmth campaign materials Public and professional websites Local PRLocalised social media messages Display joint branded posters Distribute alerts to Local Age UKs Local case studies Reciprocal guest blogs Age UK publications Age UK Local Age UKs

6. Evaluation

7. © Crown copyright Met Office Winter 2011/12

8. © Crown copyright Met Office Cold Weather Alerts Issued Cold weather temperature threshold

9. Does your organisation forward the Cold Weather Alerts to front line staff and other organisations? © Crown copyright Met Office Source: HPA - Evaluation Report - Cold Weather Plan for England 2011-12

10. 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

11. www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/coldweat heralert/ Web page 1,722,888 views This page links to Age UK website Press releases 25,128 views

12. © Crown copyright Met Office 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

13. © Crown copyright Met Office Questions & answers

14. © Crown copyright Met Office 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.

15. Communications evaluation © Crown copyright Met Office 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