Under a UK funded project, British health journalists are offered free training in June. The 4 days free training session hopes to improve the quality and standards of health reporting. NUJ and the Medical Journalists Association have extended their support for the training. The free training will be conducted in London on June 11 and 12 and in Coventry on June 14 and 15. Employers and editors are requested to organize sessions for staff in their workplace. Funded by the EU’s Lifelong Learning scheme, HeaRT (Health Reporter Training) program has been analyzing the various courses for European health journalists. The study suggested absence of specialist training. Responses from journalists spread across Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Romania, Spain, and the UK were collected to find out their background training, and to provide them additional support.
Training sessions are being arranged. All the partner countries ill translate materials and will conduct tests. By making online resources available, freelance journalists and staff who cannot attend the course personally can benefit from the training sessions. Under the training, wide-ranging topics including The Business & Economics of Health Care, Medical Research and Science, Understanding hospital and other financial reports and Health inequalities are covered. Experts from health care quality and hospital finances will share their knowledge and skills. Dr John Lister, lecturer at health journalism at Coventry University is one among the distinguished instructors.
