LOVING OUR NHS MK

LOVING OUR NHS MK

When someone says to you LOVE OUR NHS or CELEBRATE OUR NHS I would urge you to ensure you do not love or celebrate the NHS as an institution but do so for the front line individuals going the extra mile every day.

I have been a strong and vocal supporter of our NHS for almost forty decades. On the fourth anniversary of my daughter Rebekah’s death I published a book OURREBEKAH A LOVE STORY FROM OUR NHS. Let me share a story from that  book.

Rebekah was in the renal clinic at University Hospital Milton Keynes. She needed the more advanced treatment on offer at Churchill Hospital in Oxford. She was waiting for an ambulance to move her to Oxford. Hers was not an emergency so she had to wait until an ambulance was free, that wait was several hours.

The nurse looking after Rebekah was due to go off duty but stayed on after her shift until an ambulance was free. Stayed on for two hours of unpaid overtime.

The next morning I went into the clinic and took her a bunch of flowers. “You do not need to have done that,” she said. “No,” I replied, “and you did not  have to go that extra mile to care for my daughter.”

When Rebekah died that beautiful nurse came to the funeral.

THAT IS OUR REAL NHS – not an institution but an army of beautiful dedicated people within whom it is natural to go the extra mile.

A senior consultant surgeon once said to me: I DO NOT TREAT MY PATIENTS I CARE FOR THEM.

I am old enough to remember when Milton Keynes did not have a hospital. On the designated site for the hospital to be built stood a giant sculptured question mark with the slogan MILTON KEYNES IS DYING FOR A HOSPITAL. Who remembers that ? Today we have one of the finest hospitals in the country.

I have only been in hospital twice in my life, once to be born and once when I fell off a ladder and broke three ribs. If hospital can be a good experience my time in University Hospital Milton Keynes was a beautiful adventure. There was a problem, I did not want to eat. I just did not feel like eating. Then food served from the kitchens in Milton Keynes Hospital is five star but I just did not feel like eating. The nurses kept telling me to eat and the guy in the next bed to me even gave me some of the food his family had brought in for him to snack on as a way to help me. I just did not feel like eating.

Eventually I did eat a meal. Seeing my empty plate the ward sister came up from behind me and gave me a big hug. Some may say that was unprofessional. Poppycock that was NHS love and that was the NHS treatment I needed right then.

Today our NHS is under great pressure, people are working incredibly log shifts but they never fail to go the extra mile, they never fail t o care for patients and not simply treat them.

When you celebrate, applaud and love our NHS please do so for the people and not for the institution.