Hundreds of north east youngsters thank North East Ambulance Service employees on 70th birthday of NHS

North East Ambulance Service has received 450 individual thankyou cards from youngsters across the region to wish its employees a very Happy Birthday on the 70^th anniversary of the NHS.

Impressive contributions from 16 schools and community groups have been received by the Trust over the past few weeks, giving a panel of judges some difficult decisions to make about who to award the winning prize to.

Amongst the contributions were artistic and creative entries from the following; 1^st Boldon Guides, 2^nd Boldon Brownies, 1^st Benfieldside Brownies and Rainbows, St Alban’s Primary School, Dene House Primary School, 48^th Sunderland Guide Unit, Rowlands Gill Primary School, Lingey House Primary School, St Aloysuis RC Federation, St Aloysuis Primary School, Stanley’s at Primrose Children’s Centre, Atkinson Road Primary Academy, Swansfield Park Primary School, Burradon Community Primary School, Sir Charles Parsons School, Kenton Bar Primary School.

Nine year old Lily Bell from Swansfield Park Primary School in Alnwick, whose card design impressed the judges particularly, was announced as the winner on the NHS birthday, 5^th July.  The Trust turned Lily’s winning design into a card, which has been sent to all 65 ambulance stations around the North East to say thank you to staff. 

Judges were so overwhelmed by the entries, they have also created displays of the remaining cards across many of their sites so that staff too can enjoy them.

Chief Executive at the Trust, Yvonne Ormston said, “The birthday of the NHS is something we all wanted to celebrate and it’s given us a chance to say an extra special thankyou to our staff.  For so many young people to respond to our competition has been fabulous.  Our staff work particularly hard, often in challenging circumstances, but receiving this amount of appreciation from our communities is really humbling.  Amongst the entries were some really special designs and messages and whilst we had to choose an overall winner, we want to say thank you to everyone and share as many of them as we can.  Happy birthday to all of our staff and our NHS colleagues nationwide.”

As part of our card competition, the Trust also received an entry from a very special class of reception children at St Joseph's RC Primary School in Stanley who wanted to say their very own ‘thank you’ to our staff and every other NHS employee involved in caring for their school friend Daniel Rainbow to help him get rid of the ‘nasties’. 

Mrs Quinney, their reception teacher, had been teaching the class about ‘people who help us’ and how ambulance and NHS staff help people when they are poorly, in the run up to the 70^th birthday.  Together they wanted to enter the competition with something special for Daniel, to thank everyone for helping their friend get better and back to school playing and learning with them, having been in and out of hospital a lot.

Mrs Quinney said, “The whole class are very close to each other and are so caring about one another.  When someone is not well they will all ask about that person and when they return to school and they will all look after whoever has been off poorly. This is no different with their friend Daniel - they are so loving towards him and make sure that he is okay, they play with him and miss him when he isn’t in school.”

To tell their story, they each contributed to a thank you card with their personal experiences of the NHS and a picture and extra specially, over the top of a finger painted rainbow, each child in the class added 70 of their individual sparkly glitter prints, representing all things positive, to show their support for Daniel and the NHS.

To see more of the competition entries, follow North East Ambulance Service on Facebook.