As the festive season approaches, St John is making it easier for the media to reach the communications team for incident inquiries.

St John has launched a new St John media line, 0800 756 334 and email address, media@stjohn.org.nz which will be monitored throughout the Christmas and New Year period and beyond.

The communications team will monitor these from Monday to Sunday from 7.00am – 7.00pm including on public holidays.

After hours, calls to the media line will provide the caller with the option of reaching an ambulance communications team member from one of three ambulance communications centres.

The summer holiday period is an extremely busy time for St John Ambulance and the best way to keep up to date on incidents St John has attended is by following St John’s media alerts Twitter account.

St John’s ambulance communications centres in Auckland and Christchurch post information on incidents attended by St John Ambulance via the Twitter handle @StJohnAlerts. Please note, this is an unmonitored feed. Each tweet contains a link to stjohn.org.nz where expanded information will be posted when available.

The Twitter media alerts service is designed to provide the media with information in a timely manner and reduce incident inquiries into the ambulance communications centres, to ensure St John’s emergency call handlers can remain focused on answering 111 calls and dispatching emergency ambulances, to continue providing the best service they can for the public.

A reminder, patient privacy limits the depth of information St John can provide to the media.

St John can provide the following information in its Twitter media alerts and to media who inquire via the media line and email address:

• Time of incident/emergency 111 call

• Type of incident (motor vehicle, water, medical etc.)

• General location but not the specific address

• Number of patients

• Status of patient/s

• Which medical facility the patient is transported to.

St John thanks the media for its ongoing support and wishes everyone a safe and restful summer.

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