Crisis Communications
A UK crisis communications agency for organisations facing a live incident: a safeguarding case, a regulatory action, a leak, a leadership departure, or a story about to break. A partner takes the call, not a coordinator, out of hours included.
What actually happens
Almost everyone calls us in the middle of something rather than ahead of it. This is what that looks like.
We establish what is actually true, what is already public, and what is about to be. A partner takes the call, not a coordinator. Before anything is said publicly you will have a holding line you can stand behind and a clear view of who needs to hear from you first.
One spokesperson, one version of the facts. We brief the people who will be asked questions, and open direct contact with the journalists who matter. Where a story is wrong we challenge it with evidence, on the record, inside the time the deadline allows.
We move from reacting to setting the terms: proactive briefing, correcting the record where it is inaccurate, and making sure the coverage that follows carries your position and not only your critics'.
You call, we start. No procurement cycle and no onboarding deck. Out of hours included, because crises do not keep office hours.
The cheapest crisis is the one you prepared for. Scenario planning, holding statements drafted before you need them, spokesperson training for the people who will front it, and a number that is answered at 2am.
Where we work
We concentrate crisis work where the stakeholder map is already familiar to us, not learned on your clock.
CQC action, safeguarding incidents and patient-safety stories, where the regulator, the coroner and the press can all be moving at once.
Ofsted action, safeguarding cases and governance disputes, where parents, staff and students are all stakeholders in the same story.
Leadership departures, funding and insolvency questions, and leaks, where the market and the newsroom read every word the same way.
After the crisis
The immediate threat is only the first part.
Once the acute phase passes, what people find when they search for you, and what the record says about you for years, is a longer game. That is reputation management, handled by the same senior team.
Reputation management & crisis PR →FAQs
Immediately. Crises do not keep office hours, so neither do we. A partner is on the first call, and we work to a holding position, a stakeholder plan and a media line within hours, not days.
Both. Emergencies are the more common way in, and we take those calls the same day, out of hours included. But the cheapest crisis is the one you prepared for, so we also work on retainer: scenario planning, holding statements written before they are needed, spokesperson training, and a direct number for when something breaks.
Our crisis work concentrates where we already know the regulators, the journalists and the stakeholder map: adult social care and healthcare, schools and further education, and corporate and financial services. In practice that means CQC and Ofsted action, safeguarding incidents, patient-safety stories, leadership departures, funding and insolvency questions, and leaks.
If a specific story, incident or regulatory action is live and the outcome is still movable, that is a crisis, and the clock matters. If you are dealing with what people find when they look you up over months or years, with nothing currently unfolding, that is reputation management, and there is more time to be deliberate. Most engagements start as the first and become the second. Call either way; we will tell you honestly which one you are actually in.
A partner answers, not a coordinator. We establish what is actually true, what is already public, and what is about to be, then agree a holding line and who needs to hear from you first, before anything is said publicly.
From our insights
Speak with us
Thirty minutes with a partner. We'll tell you whether we can help, what the work would look like, and what it's likely to cost, before either of us commits to anything.
