Meet the Bristol man cooking for NHS workers
Tom Doyle hopes to cook 200 portions for staff at Bath's RUH despite not being a trained chef
A Bristol man is planning to cook hundreds of meals for Westcountry NHS workers, for the second time during the pandemic.
Tom Doyle from Longwell Green first took on the task during the first lockdown despite not being a trained chef.
During the first wave in March last year he raised £6,000 and fed more than 2,000 frontline workers.
Now, with infection rates at their worst yet, he's decided to do the same again and cook meals primarily for staff at Bath's Royal United Hospital.
"It (the scheme) came to a natural end in the summer last year when people started to go back to work," he tells us.
"So what started as just me ended up being a team of around seven or eight cooks around the country that were being funded by the donations to my Just Giving page..
"But then there were drivers...and most of us were off work.
"I actually worked through that period, I work for a technology company, but they gave me one day off work a week to do this which was great."
Tom says he decided to take on the challenge again after a conversation with a relative who works on the front line.
"My wife's uncle is a nurse at the RUH in Bath and he is working on the ICU (intensive care unit) and was explaining to my father in law just how bad it is, in very distressing terms," he says.
"And at the same time that I heard that conversation there was a news report on the BBC where they were interviewing three doctors from an ICU in London just explaining the severity.
"I think we might have all become a bit numb to how bad it is the second time around because we've been going through this for a year and we're not glued to the news like we were last March.
"And that just made me realise there is something I can do, so I'll take a day off and I'm going to go and cook as much as I can in a day and provide it to the ICU team in Bath, just to give them a lift."
Tom plans to take next Friday (05/02) off work and cook everything in a hotel kitchen in Taunton.
He's looking to raise £500 for the food and at time of writing has largely reached his target already.
Not being a trained chef, he says the biggest challenge is getting the quantity right.
"When you're cooking for 50 to 100 portions, working out how much you need of everything, and then getting it, is time consuming.
"But then if you take vegetables as an example, the amount of time it takes to prepare all of this food can take like five or six or seven hours before you start cooking."
This time around he hopes to cook enough for 200 portions.
"That will provide a lunch or a dinner for everyone that works in the ward," he says.
"But also a number of them could take some home and store them in the freezer and have them ready to go for when they're exhausted at the end of a long day.
"So I think if we can get close to that number, I've got some helpers so they will be busy with the prep, but yeah if we can get to that number I think that will give them a lift when they need it most.
If you want to donate you can do so via Tom's Just Giving page here.