Doctors, nurses, hospital chaplains and healthcare professionals from across Yorkshire will be taking part in a diocesan service to celebrate the NHS taking place this Sunday 29 July at Ripon Cathedral.
The NHS at 70 celebration at 3.30pm will be led by the Dean of Ripon, the Very Revd John Dobson and the preacher will be the Bishop of Leeds, the Rt Revd Nick Baines.
The service will include stories from the NHS over its 70 year history – from a GP, a patient, and a hospital chaplain - as well as a recording from 70 years ago made by Aneurin Bevan who was Minister of Health when the NHS began in 1948.
At the start of Sunday’s service health service professionals will process into the Cathedral alongside clergy. Music will be led by the visiting choir of St Luke’s Chelsea
Readings will be given by a GP and also by a Nurse, Monica Sharpe who is the longest serving member of staff at Harrogate District Hospital and has just celebrated her own 70th birthday.
Monica was born in Trinidad, the day after the National Health Service was launched. She moved to Yorkshire at the age of 21. “We came here and arrived at Leeds and then came to Harrogate General. I’d never travelled on a plane before in my life.”
Next August, Monica will have served as a nurse in the Harrogate NHS Trust for 50 years and has no plans to retire any time soon. She said: “I’m very proud of my time in the NHS, I’m hoping I live to make it to 50 years because I’m still working, I’m still nursing so I’m not planning on leaving and they don’t want me to go!”
Among those giving thanks to God for the work of the NHS will be retired priest, the Revd Canon Lynne Connolly, who was diagnosed with Bowel cancer shortly after retirement.
“I am attending the NHS service to give thanks to God for and to celebrate so many dedicated and skilful people who travel with us along the journey of illness.
“During that journey I came into direct contact with so many skilled, patient, practical, understanding and compassionate people. I experienced and heard stories from nursing, and domestic staff, porters and the phlebotomy department who skilfully took many specimens of blood and inserted cannulas, even in the middle of the night. All were dedicated to their work and many talked about their deep sense of vocation which was still there even under sometimes the most trying of circumstances.”
The Dean of Ripon, John Dobson said, “I am delighted that Bishop Nick has asked Ripon Cathedral to host the diocesan service to mark the seventieth anniversary of the founding of the NHS. This significant anniversary for our nation gives us all an opportunity to reflect on the difference that has been, and continues to be, made by the existence of the NHS.
“We are able to celebrate the invaluable service provided by medics, nurses, administrators, counsellors, research scientists, auxiliary staff and others who are the NHS. Their skills and dedication impact, sometimes very directly, on the quality of our lives.
“Please do join us on 29th July. I hope there will be many health professionals and other NHS staff with us, both to sing praises to God and to be affirmed by the rest of us.”