To celebrate 75 years of the NHS, East Lancashire Hospitals Trust colleagues gathered in The Mayor’s Parlour for a tea party.

This year’s theme is ‘Raise a Cuppa to the NHS’ and members from ELHT came together at The Old Town Hall in King William Street to share their experiences and talk about their memories.

They were joined by The Mayor and The Leader of Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council and other Blackburn with Darwen Council colleagues.

The group was served a delicious array of sandwiches, samosas, fruit and a wonderful cake to mark the special occasion.

The Mayor of Blackburn with Darwen and NHS healthcare assistant and former textile worker Cllr Parwaiz Akhtar has chosen East Lancashire Hospice, and East Lancashire Hospitals Trust charity ELHT&Me to support during the Mayoral year.

Speaking at the Raise a Cuppa to the NHS event yesterday (July 4), he said: “The NHS is doing an excellent job because the members of staff are really brilliant.

"They do care about patients, about the relatives, and they give their 110 per cent to make sure people get that full service.

“I’m really pleased that we’re working and I’m really satisfied by what we do and we’ve got a very good system in Blackburn.”

Susan Huddleston was one of the guests invited to the event to celebrate the NHS.

Susan started work for the Trust as a Catering Assistant in the Catering Department at Queen’s Park Hospital – now Royal Blackburn Teaching Hospital - in July 1969 when she was just 15-year-old.

After 54 years of service her final position for the Trust was as a Bereavement Office before she retired.

She was described by Sheena Byrom, another guest at the event, as someone “who never stopped smiling adding that ELHT was lucky to have Susan.

Sheena qualified as a midwife in 1978 at Burnley General Hospital. Sheena was awarded an OBE, produced a best-selling book ‘Catching Babies’, and continues to share and inspire midwives locally and globally.

Also at the event was Pauline Quinn, Sheena’s boss who trained as a midwife during the 1960s and worked at Queen’s Park as service manager for Midwifery and was given an OBE by the Queen for services to midwifery in Lancashire.

Speaking at the event, Pauline said: “I’ve had a wonderful career. I loved midwifery and I loved being a manager. I always loved my job and I never didn’t want to go to work.

"There were definitely challenges and things were difficult but I had a great career and it’s lovely to be hear to talk about it and celebrate it.”

Paige Barnes, a breast cancer survivor and fundraiser for Burnley General Teaching Hospital, raised more than £8,000 for the Primrose Unit to help buy four new slap cooling caps used during chemotherapy treatment and shared her story at the event.

Another wonderful guest at the Mayor’s event was Dunni Akinbulumo who joined ELHT as a Staff Nurse in 2020 from Nigeria and now works as a Pastoral Care Nurse for International Recruitment.

Yasir Abdelhadi, a Blackburn with Darwen council employee who works in partnership with ELHT and others on the Health Equity Alliance spoke about his work tackling healthy inequality.

Councillor Phil Riley, leader of Blackburn with Darwen Council said: “The NHS is certainly the greatest British institution.

"It’s an interesting time for us and we’re hoping that the next election will give us an opportunity to test out what people really want in our service because it needs funding.

“Britain is a very different country than the country in 1948 when it began so it does need retesting.

"I remember my grandmother telling me how it was before the war and what it meant to people so it’s great to still be able to celebrate it with yourselves who make it work. So, well done.”