75 stories for 75 years
Irene Finch worked 25 years at Blackpool Teaching Hospitals but like many colleagues three family members are keeping up the tradition of service to the NHS. She started at Blackpool Victoria Hospital as a domestic in 1978 before becoming an auxiliary nurse in the 1980s. Retiring in 2003 Irene, now aged 81, worked on the geriatric… Continue Reading Life with the NHS is a family affair for the Finches
The great and the good gathered at Blackpool Victoria Hospital on 29 January 1965 for the grand opening of a new operating theatre and sterile supplies department. The £132,000 building costs described in the event’s glossy programme and brochure was among the first phase of works to transform the Vic into a district general hospital. … Continue Reading Sixties mark era of expansion and modernisation at Vic
Nursing is very much a family affair for Caroline Costello whose mum and dad met at Blackpool Vic, fell love and made their careers there. Peter Cardew was the tutor pictured with a class of 1991 at the old hospital nursing school submitted to our NHS75 archive by his former student Andrea Goodey. “You’ve made… Continue Reading Peter leaves legacy of learning to generation of nurses
Critically ill in hospital, Kieran Morgan’s chances of surviving were “truly worse than terrible” but one thing kept him going. It was the thought of restoring and getting behind the wheel of his newly bought 1999 Mercedes C-Class saloon. Kieran, from Poulton-le-Fylde, was receiving treatment for rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s disease when immunosuppressant therapy he… Continue Reading My Mercedes helped me walk again – with a little help from the NHS
The team, which is based across Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre, took top prize in the Research, Quality and Innovation Award at Blackpool Teaching Hospitals Celebrating Success staff awards. A scarcity of appropriately trained staff as well as the impact of the Covid pandemic meant the team was facing significant challenges providing the right support… Continue Reading Award ‘massive boost’ for children’s speech and language team
Having a baby in the days before the NHS was an expensive business if you had to go to hospital – which is why more than half the children born before 1948 were delivered at home, often by midwives employed by a local authority or nursing association. Typically, the price of a home delivery was… Continue Reading Day-old NHS saved Marcia’s mum and dad £9 in hospital fees
Working for the NHS is a world of opportunities as nurse Robert Ward’s career shows. He qualified as a registered mental health nurse in 1987, working at Blackpool Victoria Hospital’s psychiatric unit, later known as Parkwood and now demolished. Robert then took advantage of an 18-month post-registration course to become a registered general nurse. Blackpool… Continue Reading ‘There’s never been a day I didn’t want to come to work’
For those working in the NHS, the organisation is often seen as a family, with lifelong friendships developing in a fast-paced environment dedicated to supporting people at what is sometimes their most difficult time. This was never truer than for a group of friends who reunited at Blackpool Victoria Hospital recently, four decades after qualifying… Continue Reading The reunion: ‘If I could do it all again, I would in a heartbeat’
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