NHS75: Special film released following Glastonbury performance
The former Bristol Poet Laureate - Miles Chambers - was tasked with writing an ode to the Health Service for this year's Glastonbury Festival
Last updated 5th Jul 2023
On the day the NHS turns 75, the health service in Somerset has released a very special film and poem which was written by former Bristol Poet Laureate, Miles Chambers.
The video, which features a performance of the poem by Miles and local Somerset NHS staff at Glastonbury Festival, has also been placed in the archives at the British Film Institute, to mark this momentous occasion.
Back at Glastonbury Festival, a number of NHS staff joined Miles on stage, including Glastonbury GP Rebecca Hall, physiotherapist Ben Matthews and Angela Reece, a nurse for children looked after at Somerset NHS Foundation Trust.
The performance of the poem was made to represent all 1.26 million NHS staff in England who've spent at least some of their working lives with the institution.
GP Rebecca Hall said: "We had an absolute blast at Glastonbury Festivals. I hadn’t expected to be so moved by the wonderful poem. You could have heard a pin drop amongst the 140,000 odd crowd at the Pyramid Stage as the poem was read out and the film was played.
"I felt the whole crowd was with us and the loud cheers following the performance made me feel so proud to be part of the NHS. Breath-taking".
The founding principles of the NHS remain as relevant and valued today as they did then - to be available to all, free at the point of delivery.
Today in England, 1.3 million people are treated with the NHS every single day.
In Somerset, 17,000 people, from over 200 nationalities, work for the NHS. From the midwives to GPs and pharmacists who are our first port of call when we are unwell, to the porters, cleaners, receptionists, doctors, nurses and thousands of staff who help keep everything moving, at a time when we have never been under such pressure.
The Glastonbury Festival performers
Rebecca Hall, GP at Glastonbury Surgery, said: “I love being a GP – it’s a massive privilege to be part of people's lives when they are at their most vulnerable. I love the connection with patients, learning from them and being inspired by them.
“We are very lucky in Somerset to have a rich and diverse community and landscape. I love exploring what makes my patients happy and working out together how we can build on this. Whether it is knitting premature baby hats, growing broccoli, singing in a rock choir or practising mindfulness while strolling through a bird reserve at sunset.
“I have found my place alongside the brilliant social prescribers and health coaches who make such a huge difference to the lives of our patients. I am inspired to practice a more sustainable model of healthcare where we work alongside patients to support them, while also allowing them to make informed choices."
Ben Matthews, Physiotherapist and First Contact Practioner, said: “I swam competitively during my high school days and this led to some injuries. Working with a physio and getting back to a sport I loved made me realise that I wanted to provide that same help to others, to help them get back to what they had lost.
“After studying physiotherapy at Plymouth University nearly 11 years ago I now run clinics throughout the east of Somerset specialising in upper and lower limb conditions, as well as being a First Contact Practitioner in Primary Care. This varied job role, helping people as well as allowing me to work alongside some awesome clinicians gives me immense satisfaction.
"The NHS for me is inherently British. It is something that I am proud of. One of the reasons I work for the NHS is I want my skills to be free to the people who need it. Fundamentally the reason I and I believe other people work in the healthcare sector is because we care and want to help people. Working in the NHS always feels as though you are part of a team, your small one is part of a bigger team which is part of an institution."
Angela Reece, a Children Looked After Nurse at the Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, started her nursing career in 1985 in London.
She said: “I’ve now worked in the NHS for 38 years, and my career has taken me from a general nurse to a Midwife to a Health Visitor and Specialist Community Public Health Nurse to the current role that I work at as a Children Looked After Nurse. My nursing qualification has also allowed me to travel, and I spent a year in Australia and worked at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney.
"I know that I am happy and blessed in my life and as a result of the career I chose”.
Former Bristol Poet Laureate pays tribute to the NHS
With just a month's notice, Bristol's former Poet Laureate was tasked with preparing a poem to perform on one of the world's biggest stages - the Pyramid Stage.
Miles Chambers told us: "It was an incredible invitation and an incredible experience. My mum, when she first came here in the '60s, went to nursing college in Leeds. My sister is a midwife, and my other sister became to be a director of nurses in London and in Swindon.
"It was surreal to perform that poem on that stage - knowing it was Glastonbury, and knowing we had all that responsibility to those millions who work for the NHS.
"The whole poem leads on to the last verse, about the hands of the people who work in the NHS. Whoever works at the NHS, it's their hands that do the work - and it makes up a body that cares.
"There's nowhere else in the world that everybody gets a free health service like we do, and it's amazing.
"To celebrate that, to mention that, to talk about that, to talk about that - it's an emotional thing in its own right because of all of the experiences and stories that have come out of those 75 years."
NHS 75th birthday Poem
The full poem following the Glastonbury Festival performance has now been published by NHS Somerset:
Pause for a moment, just for a minute,
Think of the NHS.
Tell me what do you see?
I see… an army of men and women dedicated to you and me,
Caring from Somerset to the Isles of Sicily.
The place you call when you’re in pain,
I see humanity, I see care.
I see the people who are always there.
I see their courage, in an emergency,
When there’s tears and it’s very bloody.
I see 75 years of unparalleled, medical advancements.
Admired around the globe.
An institution.
Free to everyone whether you’re rich or poor,
Young or old.
I see people rising to the challenge.
Tuberculosis, treated!
Polio, vaccinated!
Babies, incubated!
I see champions being clapped on, fighting an invisible enemy
“Covid” was our biggest adversary!
I see 350 different vocations, all of them heroes
The pharmacist, the oncologist
The receptionist, the pathologist.
The nurses, the doctors,
The cleaners, the porters.
Treating mothers, fathers, sons and daughters.
I see you and me,
Just like us, yet they came from distant seas, the NHS is their family.
From Jamaica or New Delhi, they came here for us.
They were a vital growth of our medical body.
Part of the hands that bring remedy.
Those hands that caressed the pulse as it passes,
Those hands that hold the other end of the phone, when you’re all alone.
The hands that lift,
The hands that lower,
Those hands that steer the wheel in an emergency,
Those hands that pull new life into reality,
Those hands that shelter until the babe can breathe easily.
Those hands that care,
The hands that heal
These hands are blessed .
These hands make up the NHS.