NHS 75th Anniversary Celebration at North Bristol NHS Trust

Wednesday, July 5, 2023

It is a momentous day, marking 75 years of all the dedicated staff who have decided to join the National Health Service, which was set up to provide healthcare to everyone, regardless of their circumstances. This compassion and commitment to helping others is what all of our staff have in common as NHS professionals.

Southmead Hospital Charity and Gloucestershire Cricket Club

Today we had a visit from Will Brown, CEO of Gloucestershire Cricket Club, and some key players, who presented our staff with a birthday card, which will remain in our Brunel atrium for staff and visitors sign it. Will recently gave a touching speech about his personal experience as a patient here at NBT, where our staff treated him following an accident where he broke part of his neck – you can read the story from Will here. It’s stories like Will’s that make our staff so proud every day of the work we all do to serve our local community, and we’re delighted to announce that the Gloucestershire Cricket Club has chosen our Southmead Hospital Charity as one of of its charitable partnerships for this year. . They also supported the NHS anniversary by providing their official mascot, G-Rilla, to give happy hugs to NHS staff and visitors this week, which has already had a great response!

Birthday cards have also been distributed to all of our Trust sites including Women & Children’s, Pathology, Learning & research, Cossham, Bristol Center for Enablement, Frenchay, Weston and South Bristol Dialysis Unit for people to sign.

NBT colleagues represent the Trust at events in London

Colleagues from NBT represented the Trust in London today at a service at Westminster Abbey and a reception at 10 Downing Street to commemorate 75 years of the NHS.

Both events were held to celebrate NHS workers and volunteers who have contributed to NHS services as well as to mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of the NHS.

The reception at 10 Downing Street involved guests being welcomed by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and other political leaders from the government, in the presence of facilities team leader Omar Bah.

Nida Digma, practice development nurse for stroke and neurology; volunteer Stewart Howes; Tony Hudgell, director of operational areas and facilities; Sandro Mangino, Health Assistant based at Gate 33B Urology; and Sanjoy Shah, deputy chief medical officer, attended the Westminster Abbey service.

Colleagues described being invited to attend today’s events as a great privilege and honor and how proud they felt to represent NBT.

Stories of our staff and services

The NHS is people-centred, so this week some of our staff shared their stories of their journey in the NHS, as well as their aspirations for the future of the NHS. You can see Owen Dunkley’s early story from Medical Records here, and we’ll be sharing more throughout the week. As well as sharing some of our history, we’ve also highlighted some of the innovative practices that are propelling the NHS into the future.

Innovation

The NHS has been a global leader in healthcare innovation for the past 75 years, as it has evolved to meet the needs of patients, and I am so proud that NBT continues to do part of this avant-garde approach.

Robotics are used clinically in our Trust, from procedures using robotic equipment to small pill-sized cameras used to help detect pathology. Our three surgical robots, two of which were funded by the Southmead Hospital Charity, have been used in oncology, colorectal, urology surgery and recently expanded to include gynecology. The advantages of the robot are that we can offer our patients a less invasive treatment and means a shorter hospital stay after the procedure, which greatly improves the results. Our colorectal surgery team recently celebrated their 100th procedure (pictured), which is a fantastic achievement, while our urology department has performed over 3,000 procedures since 2014, congratulations to everyone involved in achieving these amazing steps. I am so excited to see how we will continue to grow our robotic surgery services in the future.

It is not just the clinical areas where robotics is used, these innovations can also be seen in areas such as facilities. Our 12 Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) at Brunel perform approximately 9,000 jobs per month, assisting our team of porters and performing manual handling tasks to help our hospital run behind the scenes.

These examples are just a few of the ways NBT continues to help lead the way in healthcare innovation. I know there is a range of work going on across NBT to help bring about improvements in every area of ​​our trust and I want to sincerely thank you for these efforts.

Experience of EXPO staff and activities

We promoted different aspects of our staff experience offering, including our staff wellbeing psychologists and chaplaincy team, as well as our sustainability team sharing information about our commitment to Carbon Net Zero by 2030. There were also many musical performances by local artists, our volunteer pianists and the Horfield Primary School Choir. Our therapy dogs also brought joy to staff and visitors, and our Division of Women’s and Children’s Health hosted a garden party.