National Health Service celebrates 75th anniversary with service at Westminster Abbey in London
The NHS is 75.
And the health service is celebrating the anniversary today (Wednesday) with a service at Westminster Abbey, writes Tegan Davies.
On July 5, 1948 the National Health Service took over 480,000 hospital beds in England and Wales with an estimated 125,000 nurses and 5,000 consultants.
Aneurin Bevan, credited with starting the service, was the health secretary in Clement Atlee’s labour government at the time, which created the NHS to provide universal and free care to all those who needed it.
For the celebration today, seven colleagues from Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West Integrated Care Board (BOB ICB) will join other staff, senior government and political leaders, health leaders and celebrities at the service in London.
The service will take place at 11am and will include an address by NHS chief executive, Amanda Pritchard.
Rachael de Caux, BOB ICD chief medical officer, said: “This special service will be a day to remember for everyone attending and an opportunity to reflect. I hope our colleagues from the ICB really enjoy being a part of such a remarkable occasion.”
May Parsons, an associate chief nurse who delivered the world’s first Covid vaccine in December 2020, will carry the George Cross into the Abbey in a procession.
She received the medal from Queen Elizabeth II, along with Ms Pritchard, at Windsor Castle in July 2022.
She will be joined by 17-year-old Kyle Dean-Curtis, the St John Ambulance cadet of the year, who wants to work in the NHS, and 91-year-old Enid Richmond, who was one of the first people to work in the NHS and whose sister still volunteers in the service.
Five members of staff from South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SCAS) will also be at the event in Westminster Abbey.
Prayers will be read by health and social care secretary, Steve Barclay; chief nurse, Dame Ruth May; NHS national medical director, Professor Sir Stephen Powis; chief allied health professions officer, Professor Suzanne Rastick OBE; and Richard Webb-Stephens, a paramedic who was first on scene of the Westminster Bridge terror attack and who holds the Queen's Ambulance Medal for Distinguished Service.
Testimonies will also be given by Dame Elizabeth Anionwu OM, the UK's first sickle cell nurse; Ellie Orton, chief executive of NHS Charities Together; and Dr Martin English and Dr Michael Griksaitis, NHS consultants who jointly led a team who extracted 21 Ukrainian children with cancer over to the UK from Poland in March 2022, following the Russian invasion.
