Celebrating the NHS turning 75

Meet Bow Heath, our longest serving volunteer at NUH, who supports our specialist stoma nurses by helping with the day to day running of the stoma clinic at the City Hospital. Find out more about Bow here. 

June Belshaw, 75, first started working at the Trust back in 1973. Her first role was in the operating theatre at the age of 25. She has now worked in the NHS for fifty years and has been given a special award. Learn more about June’s NHS career here.

Prince Charles broke his elbow in a polo match in 1990. After a three-hour operation, Charles was cared for in a normal side room on ward D9 with a small bay occupied by his security team and personal assistants throughout his week-long stay. Charles brought his own chefs as he didn’t want to cause any unnecessary work for catering staff. Despite this, he was curious to sample the food. Find out more here.

We are celebrating more than 45 years of clinical genetics at NUH, from its humble beginnings in 1977, the service now has more than 30 clinical staff and supports over 5000 patients each year through genetic testing. Find out more here. 

A man who can hear thanks to a cochlear implant has praised the NHS for saving him from living in a silent world. The implant took place at Queen’s Medical Centre and the device was switched on a month later at Ropewalk House, a nationally recognised centre for auditory implantation. Patient, Ian Milner said: “It has given me a new lease of life – the improvements have been mind-blowing! And I want to let everyone know how fantastic it is.” Find out more here.

As the NHS celebrates its 75th birthday, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust is taking the opportunity to look ahead to what developments and technological advances our patients could expect from our hospitals in the future. Find out more here. 

Research carried out by our staff has helped patients receive life-saving treatments during the Covid-19 crisis and treat serious diseases including liver disease, while Nottingham has led the way by pioneering magnetic resonance imaging. In terms of NUH’s contribution to clinical research over the last 75 years, there is plenty to celebrate. Find out more here. 

Staff, patients and volunteers in Nottingham have a starring role in three murals that have been commissioned to commemorate the 75th anniversary. Funded by the Medical Staff Committee (MSC) the murals will be installed at QMC and City Hospital over the summer. Find out more here. 

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Empire Windrush arriving in England. The National Health Service was founded less than a month later, and these landmarks in UK history saw the Windrush generation becoming the backbone of our NHS. To mark this shared anniversary, a Nottingham nurse has told of the impact the Windrush Leadership programme has had on him – both professionally and personally – and urged colleagues to sign up. Find out more here.  

To help round off our NHS75 celebrations, Channel 4’s hit fly-on-the-wall documentary series, 24 Hours in A&E, will return to our screens on Monday 10 July at 9pm to help mark 75 years of the NHS. Four new episodes from Series 1, filmed at the Queen’s Medical Centre (QMC) in 2021, will be broadcast throughout the NHS birthday month of July. Find out more here.