'We're like a family - we even go on holiday together'
Katherine Evans says patients don't always realise how close the staff are in Somerset's community hospitals
Last updated 7th Jul 2023
'We're like a family' - the message from staff on the final day of our week-of-features going behind-the-scenes of Somerset's NHS.
We've been hearing from those who go the extra mile to mark the health service turning 75.
Katherine Evans has been telling us why she's so passionate about the 'NHS family'
It comes as Call The Midwife screenwriter Heidi Thomas said the NHS is a "gift beyond price" which gives ordinary people "dignity, equality and respect".
Thomas said the creation of the NHS 75 years ago, on July 5 1948, meant for the first time that everyone's health was valued equally by society.
And without its role in preventing illness, Thomas said she might have died from tuberculosis (TB) as a child, like many of her ancestors.
"The first series of Call The Midwife was set in 1957 - nine years after the inception of the NHS. Since then, we have been able to show vaccination becoming the norm, mass X-rays helping stamp out TB, and every single woman receiving wraparound care during pregnancy and childbirth," she told the PA news agency.
"Medical advances such as antibiotics may well have happened anyway, but the incalculable benefit of the NHS meant that systems existed to deliver cure, care and prevention right across the board.
"No-one was an island any more, and time and time again we have shown people accessing treatment they didn't realise that they could have."
Thomas, who also wrote the 2022 film Allelujah based on Alan Bennett's play of the same name about a geriatric ward in a hospital in West Yorkshire, said: "Above all else, the NHS gave ordinary people dignity, equality and respect.
"For the first time in history, society valued the health of people on the dole as much as it valued that of millionaires.
"Suddenly, we were all entitled to be well, free from pain, and to plan for a long and productive life.
"It seems extraordinary, but this was a new idea just 75 years ago - before the NHS, working class people expected nothing and got less.
"Afterwards, they were respected, and they were empowered. It was a gift beyond price, and worth every penny."
Call The Midwife was originally created by Thomas from the memoirs of Jennifer Worth who worked as a district nurse and midwife, attached to a convent, in the East End of London during the 1950s.
An NHS chief has paid tribute to the "constant" compassion of the service's 1.4 million staff, as the institution celebrates its 75th anniversary.
But Amanda Pritchard, chief executive of the NHS in England, acknowledged the "enormous challenges" faced by workers, including the record demand for services and the backlog of care.
Professor Sir Stephen Powis, national medical director for the health service in England, said that staff were meeting these new challenges "head on".
Ms Pritchard told the PA news agency that the 75th anniversary of the service is an opportunity to "reflect" on the hard work of staff while looking forward to the future of the NHS.