Client Case Study: Anne Davies
Updated: Aug 28
Following the devastating loss of her husband Jeff, Anne Davies has campaigned tirelessly for greater awareness of occupational cancer, improved protection for firefighters and better recognition of the risks they face. The Prominence Collective supported Anne through PR and communications, helping bring her story, campaign and calls for change to audiences across the UK.
Jeff Simpson was an award-winning firefighter and father of four who dedicated much of his working life to the fire service. He died from lung cancer aged 69, within 24 hours of receiving his diagnosis. Anne believes his years of exposure to toxic substances while working as a firefighter, alongside inadequate protection and health monitoring, contributed to his illness being identified at such a late stage.
For Anne, sharing Jeff’s story was about much more than raising awareness of what had happened to her family. She wanted his experience to contribute to wider change, calling for firefighters to receive better protection from harmful contaminants, greater awareness of occupational cancer risks and improved health monitoring that could help identify illnesses earlier.
Our role was to help take those calls to a much wider audience while ensuring the personal story at the heart of the campaign was communicated with care. We developed a focused PR campaign around Anne and Jeff’s experience, identifying opportunities across television, radio, print and digital media and supporting Anne as she spoke publicly about an enormously difficult period in her life.
The campaign secured extensive national and regional television, radio, print and digital coverage across the UK. Among the many outlets covering Anne’s story and calls for change were BBC Morning Live, ITV News, STV News, Hits Radio, Manchester Evening News, Bristol Live, WalesOnline, Sheffield Star and FIRE Magazine, alongside numerous other national, regional and specialist media. Through television and radio interviews, newspaper features and digital coverage, Anne was able to take her campaign well beyond her local community and raise awareness of the health risks faced by firefighters with audiences across the country.
The breadth of coverage helped bring greater public attention to occupational cancer and the questions Anne was raising around workplace exposure, protective measures, health monitoring and recognition of the risks associated with firefighting. It also gave Anne a platform to turn an intensely personal experience into a wider call for better protection and greater awareness for firefighters and their families.
Since our initial communications work, Anne has continued to campaign for change. In a significant subsequent development, Jeff is believed to have become the first firefighter in the UK to have cancer officially recognised on his death certificate as having been caused by his occupation. While this development was separate from our work, it underlines the importance of the issue Anne brought into the public conversation and the change she continues to campaign for.
If you have an important cause or campaign that needs greater visibility, please get in touch to discuss how strategic communications can help bring your story and calls for change to the audiences that matter.
