Cat's Pajamas Conversations Carrie-Ann Wade

In this episode of Communicate Well, Carrie-Ann Wade talks with Sofia Cann about her experiences of Long CoVid and how this has impacted her life and her work.

Sofia is a head of marketing and communications for three arts venues and a freelance publicist. She specialises in marketing and communications aw well as programming and producing events. She works with both businesses and individuals. Sofia is also a publicist for a number of familiar music, screen and stage personalities.

As well as highlighted the physical and mental health impacts of CoVid-19 and Long CoVid, Sofia also touches on the perimenopause and generally how we can benefit from talking more about our health and wellbeing in order to seek support and to help others. 

Huge thanks to Sofia for sharing her experiences. If you want to find out more about Sofia's freelance work you can visit www.canncommunications.co.uk and you can connect with Sofia on Twitter via @sofiacann1, on Insta via @canncommunications or on LinkedIn. 

In this episode of Cat's PJs Convos Communicate Well mini-series, Carrie-Ann Wade talks candidly with Phil Woodford about his experience as a stroke survivor. This is a real emotional rollercoaster, you will laugh and you will cry. Phil is so honest about the impacts on his life, both physically and mentally. (Trigger warning - there is mention of suicide).

Phil is the Director of Corporate Affairs at University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust and has over 20 years experience in marketing and communications. He is also about to publish his first book, 'From Prostitutes to Prime Ministers, My Words, My Life, My Experiences; A Memoir.'

If you would like to find out more about Phil visit www.philwoodford.co.uk and you can contact Phil on Twitter at @phil_woodford

In this episode of Cat's Pajamas Conversations mini-series, Communicate Well, Carrie-Ann Wade talks with Kate Jarman about Flex NHS. Kate is the Director of Corporate Affairs at Milton Keynes University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and co-founder of Flex NHS.

Flex NHS is a support and resource network that promotes and enables flexible working in the NHS. Carrie-Ann and Kate talk about the advantages of flexible working, both for individuals and organisations, how to make this work and what some of the perceived barriers are.

For communications professionals, flexible working, in whatever shape or form that may take, supports work-life balance, wellbeing and productivity. Have you thought about how flexible working might help you? Hopefully this episode will support you to reflect on this and maybe start a conversation that enables you and your team to work differently.

Find out more about Flex NHS and join the conversation via @FlexNHS on Twitter or @FlexNHS on Instagram. 

In this episode of our Cat's Pajamas Conversations mini-series Communicate Well, Carrie-Ann Wade talks with Sally Northeast, Darren Caveney and Georgia Taylor about Comms Unplugged. These three amazing communicators are the trio behind Comms Unplugged, a weekend designed to support comms pros with their wellbeing, development and learning. Find out more via www.commsunplugged.co.uk

A bit about Sally:
Deputy Director for OD, Communication and Participation at Dorset HealthCare University NHS Foundation Trust. After a degree in languages Sally trained to be a journo at the local paper in her home town. A few years later she hopped the fence into local gov comms, with a stint as a freelance and finally a move to the NHS.

A bit about Georgia:
Director of Communication and Marketing, for England’s newest urban local authority, BCP Council, serving the 400,000 residents of the city-region of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole on the glorious south coast. Georgia studied a PR degree in her hometown of Bournemouth, which included a placement at the council. She loved it so much she went back after the obligatory post-graduation travelling and hasn’t left since!

A bit about Darren:
His son claims Darren “works on The Twitter”. But really, he is a communications consultant, creator of comms2point0, and owner of Creative Communicators Ltd. Darren's 23-year career in communications, marketing and PR spans 10 years as Head of Communications within local government, a director level role in the NHS and five years in private sector marketing, winning some awards with his teams along the way and he has worked with over 100 communications teams in his consultancy role.

We think you can tell that this is a passionate bunch and we are not surprised they are collaborating on Comms Unplugged, giving back to the communications community. 

Welcome to the first episode of our Cat's Pajamas Conversations mini series, Communicate Well. In this series we talk to communications professionals about all sorts of issues relating to health and wellbeing.

In this episode, our founder Carrie-Ann Wade talks with Rachel Royall, founder of Blue Lozenge, about what it is like to be a living organ donor.

Rachel is a leader in healthcare communications and engagement. She’s founder and MD of Blue Lozenge, a strategic consultancy in healthcare focusing on support for Integrated Care Systems and complex projects. She has led Board level communications for complex organisations including IBM, NHS, HMRC, Cabinet Office, Department of Health and Social Care and local government. She is also a visiting lecturer at Quadriga University of Science and Technology in Berlin.

Rachel is a Fellow of the Institute of Internal Communications and a Chartered Institute of Public Relations Fellow and Chartered Practitioner.


Thank you so much to Rachel for sharing her story of living organ donation so candidly, not only sharing her own experiences but also offering advice to others who may want to find out more.

Follow her on twitter @RachRoyall or find Rachel on Linked In. You can find out more about Blue Lozenge via www.bluelozenge.co.uk 

And to find out more about organ donation visit www.organdonation.nhs.uk

In this final episode of our Businesses Built on Passion series, our founder Carrie-Ann Wade talks about the story behind Cat's Pajamas, what drives her and how Cat's Pajamas will grow in 2021.

Thank you to everyone who has supported Cat's Pajamas this year. Here's to a happier, healthy 2021 for us all.