The New Year has brought new and exciting projects to the company, including two websites about rare inherited conditions. Having worked on a fascinating assignment in December for boys with haemophilia, we hope to be able to use some of this experience to communicate with other young people whose lives are affected by inherited diseases. We hope that providing this new information will help them to make life choices about issues such as further education, employment and learning to live independently.

As well as writing content for two websites about Growth Hormone Deficiency (GHD), we have been busy:
* writing 'sales detailers' for healthcare professionals
* researching Age Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) for a new web project
* drafting two papers to be published in medical journals
* repurposing intranet copy for external distribution
* completing work on a series of brochures about haemophilia
* writing copy for a brochure about fibre optic networks

and helping a great friend of ours, Malcolm Davison, deliver his excellent "Writing for the Web" training course to a local authority in Essex. We hesitate to endorse his training services too strongly for fear of damaging our own business, but we can't help ourselves!

Happy Christmas from,

Suzi, David and Neville

I went to a fascinating presentation on 16th September sponsored by the Primary Care Society for Gastroenterology where, as part of an Update on IBD, Professor Alistair Forbes from UCL raised the question of how GPs should deal with non-adherence issues if they suspected a relapse in IBD was due to this. He advised against asking, "Do you always take your medication?" as this could be seen as confrontational and counter-productive; instead he advocated, "What happens if you miss your tablets for a few days?" as a more effective way of opening communication that could lead to compliance in the future.

This month the BBC picked up on comments made by an online entrepreneur, Charles Duncombe, that the sales of goods online are reduced when consumers start to question the credibility of a website: core to their perception of integrity was 'correct spelling'.

The CBI and the Oxford Internet Institute also picked up on this story, the latter commenting that a misspelt word could be a 'killer issue' as far as a customer was concerned. Of course, it's not just consumers who might be put off by careless or lazy spelling.The CBI pointed to a recent survey that showed that 42% of employers bemoaned the lack of basic reading and writing skills amongst school and college leavers which affected their job prospects.

The writers here at Lewis-Barned - Suzi, Neville and David - each try to make a difference to the education of young people. For example, Suzi visits schools and talks to groups of children about her work as a children's author; Neville has strong links to a pre-school group; and David volunteers as a school governor. The firm also sponsors an Award at a local school and Suzi judges a county-wide essay writing competition for young people.

From the feedback we receive from clients, our professional skills as writers do appear to be making a real difference. Whilst we can't always quantify the value we add, what is clear that our clients are those businesses that understand that in an 'online, always on' world the written word retains its ability to convey so much meaning, both intended and unintended.

Neville Ashcroft PhD joins our team as a specialist Medical Writer with immediate effect. 

Neville (42) has a first degree in physiology from Bristol University; his PhD was also gained from Bristol. His post-doctoral experience includes work as the guest scientist at the Institute of Cancer Research, Sutton; a Medical Research Council group leader at the Genome Damage and Stability Centre, University of Sussex; and experience as a postdoctoral fellow at The National Institutes of Health, MD USA.

Neville’s scientific skill set includes: developmental biology, (using forward and reverse genetic approaches); molecular biology, (eg cDNA library screening, Western and Northern blotting, subcloning, protein expression, etc); microscopy, (eg immunocytochemistry, microspectrophotometry, radiant spectrophotometry, transmission electron microscopy and confocal microscopy).

Neville has published a significant body of work in highly regarded peer-reviewed international journals; presented numerous abstracts at international research meetings; written articles for academic newsletters as well as public domain policy documents for schools.

Suzi attended the EULAR Conference last week to report for a well known healthcare pr agency on the positive results of research into a new biologic for patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis. It was a fascinating insight into the world of rheumatology and the ways in which new treatments really can transform the lives of those suffering with this debilitating disease.

The judging afternoon was fascinating – and a lot more fun
than I'd expected! It began with a delicious curry lunch at the Royal College
of Physicians, where I was able to put a lot of faces to names I'd previously
known only via email. Afterwards, I joined the rest of the Writing Excellence
judges for an enjoyable afternoon during which (fortunately) we reached a
consensus on the winning entry and the runners up. I'm very much looking forward
to the Awards presentation evening at the Grosvenor Hotel in July...

Suzi's latest children's book has just been published in Tanzania. Translated by John Lewis-Barned, these East African folk tales were rewritten by Suzi and are now available in the UK. You can find out more here.

We are gathering together examples of slogans, strap-lines and other bold advertising statements, particularly from owners of well-known brands, where the key message has been blown way off course because of a communications howler or slip up.

Some examples we have come across are:

* "Exculsively yours" in a press advertisement from a well known High Street retailer
* "Fairer prices for fairer skin" (yes, really!) on billboards in the car park of a leading supermarket group (and quickly withdrawn when the unintended implication was pointed out to them)
* "Your 40..." boldly printed on a birthday card

We would love to hear yours. Ultimately we aim to publish these online and will acknowledge all contributors.

The best way for any business to avoid similar mistakes is to hire a firm of professional copywriters who have checked and rechecked what's been written.

Please send your contributions via our contact page