Chris Hawkswell giving talk on social media strategy of London Ambulance Service after receiving first LMMNews public service social media communicator of the year award 2015.

Chris Hawkswell, one of the Emergency Planning Officers at the London Ambulance Service, has received the Londonmultimedianews.com first public service social media communicator of the year award.

At a ceremony in the Professor Stuart Hall Building of Goldsmiths, University of London he received a certificate and appreciation from Professor Tim Crook and applause from journalists and editors at LMMNews for the quality of his communications on the Twitter handle @LAS_TacAdvisor .

The judges recognised the increasing role of London’s public services using Twitter as the first point of communication and front-line in media interaction with the general public and professional media publications.

Many emergency services such as the Met Press bureau @metpoliceuk, RNLI Tower @TowerRNLI ,   Surrey Road Cops @SurreyRoadCops, the London Fire Brigade @LondonFire  and MPS Kingston tweeting @MPSKingston enormously impressed and were considered for the award.

Screen grab of @LAS_TacAdvisor

@LAS_TacAdvisor  received the award because:

He has created and developed  a rich multimedia resource of first aid education/information, urgent news, and fascinating behind the scenes insights into all aspects of London Ambulance Service work- from the first emergency responders, to the control room advisors taking the 999 calls, and the specialist units trained to cope with all kinds of medical crises and desperately dangerous situations. Chris Hawkswell has well over 7,000 followers and such is his dedication he carried on working while on holiday recently in Portugal; thus showing the world of digital virtual media has few geographical boundaries. He deserves credit for building a high reputation in the media and general public for the quality, creativity and interest in his Official tweets about incidents & events in London involving the London Ambulance Service.

After receiving his award Chris provided a talk on the role social media plays in LAS communications with the public.

He described the nature of their ‘social responsibility’ and the complex ethical, legal and professional duties that come into play about the nature and style of social media communications.

He emphasized that he was just one of a large and very talented team at the London Ambulance Service responsible for distributing and disseminating information to Londoners and social media consumers throughout the world.

He explained how public bodies have a statutory duty under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 to inform the public about their activities and response to events.

Chris Hawkswell holding his award outside the Professor Stuart Hall Building of Goldsmiths, University of London.

Congrats @LAS_TacAdvisor recipient of @LondonMMNews AnnualPublicServiceSocialMediaCommunicatorAward @libertarianspir http://t.co/7I1T04i0d4

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Media@Goldsmiths (@MediaComGold) June 24, 2015