Today Bella Ellis aged 5 rang the Children’s ward ‘End of Treatment Bell’ Joined by her Mum Britney and little sister Daisy, Bella today proudly rang the bell three times to mark a key milestone in her cancer treatment, as she is now in remission. First diagnosed at the age of 2 Mum and Bella… Continue Reading Bella Ellis aged 5 goes into remission
Say what you like but healthcare staff have always known how to party – as these archive photographs both before and after the founding of the NHS 75 years ago in July 1948 show … … Hitler’s domination of Europe was almost complete when this photograph was taken at a Victoria hospital staff dance in… Continue Reading Let’s party … keeping entertained from wartime to the Swinging Sixties
The ancient craft of making artificial eyes is being transformed with 21st century technology thanks to the NHS’s expert team at Blackpool. The earliest known eyes created nearly 4,000 years ago in Iran using gold but it was the glass blowers of late 16th Century Venice who crafted the first recognisably modern ones. Today’s eyes… Continue Reading Innovation puts artificial eye team’s focus on the future
A bereaved family’s praise has won a midwife an award for her compassion and caring at Blackpool Teaching Hospitals annual staff awards. Laura Walsh, who is a specialist midwife in the Swan End of Life and Bereavement Team, supported mum Amanda Partington after she lost twins in 2021. She then went on to support her… Continue Reading Family’s praise for midwife who won compassion award
Carole Paterson turned the trauma of a cancer diagnosis into a book to help other people coping with the disease. She had been benefiting from NHS monitoring of a lump for 20 years when it suddenly became very painful while driving in 2019. Carole, from St Annes, was quickly diagnosed with triple negative… Continue Reading Diary inspires book to help women living with breast cancer
Tomorrow’s Dragon Board Festival at Fairhaven Lake, Lytham St Annes, organised by our Blue Skies Hospital Fund, reminds us how important fundraising for the NHS has always been. Last year, Blue Skies donated £500,000 towards a new CT scanner at Blackpool Victoria Hospital thanks to the generosity of thousands of local people. It’s was a… Continue Reading Fundraising down the decades
Building a better hospital and improving services for patients has been a theme throughout the 75 years of the NHS at Blackpool Victoria Hospital. The Whinney Heys Road site is almost unrecognisable from the building the NHS took over in 1948 with many expansions and extensions such as the opening of the maternity unit… Continue Reading Patients welcomed into latest phase of £25m hospital ‘Emergency Village’
Lesley Brady helped celebrate in song with Seventies film and pop heartthrob David Essex when the NHS had a big birthday 25 years ago. At the time, Lesley, who joined the haematology team at Blackpool Teaching Hospitals as an audiotypist four years ago, was known as the “singing medical secretary” at Royal Oldham Hospital. “Having… Continue Reading Singing medical secretary celebrated NHS with David Essex
The NHS was wildly more successful in the first year of operation than even its biggest champions could have dreamed. So, perhaps unsurprisingly, Blackpool ambulances had their busiest month ever following the service’s launch on 5 July 1948. The Evening Gazette reported on 7 August that the six ambulances and one car made 756 journeys… Continue Reading Blackpool ambulance calls record huge success of NHS launch
A band leader’s upright piano is bringing pleasure to a new audience at Blackpool Victoria Hospital. School music teacher Hughie Mett used the piano to work out arrangements for the Blackpool Jazz Orchestra which was well-known across the Fylde during the 1960s and 1970s specialising in the Glenn Miller big band sound. His daughter, Melodie,… Continue Reading Band leader’s spirit lives on after daughter donates piano