NHS Special

To celebrate 75 years of the NHS, the team revives four precious items chronicling the evolution of the publicly funded healthcare system founded in 1948.

First to arrive are two nurses who have devoted their working lives to the NHS. Approaching retirement, Catherine is the longest-standing staff member on a children's ward at Frimley Park Hospital in Surrey, while Katie is the senior sister on the same ward. They need the expertise of metal man Dominic Chinea to get their hospital food trolley back on track. The Thomas the Tank Engine trolley provides light relief for sick children as it's wheeled into the ward three times a day to serve breakfast, lunch and dinner. It's been a feature on the ward for more than 30 years, but it is starting to show its age. It's full steam ahead for Dom who needs to get the trolley back to the hospital as soon as possible for the children to enjoy.

Next, the barn team welcomes a very important visitor who owes his life to the NHS, children's author and poet Michael Rosen. He's hoping bookbinder Chris Shaw can repair the daily diary kept by nurses and carers whilst he was in a 40-day induced coma at the start of the pandemic. The modern spiral notebook is Michael's record of this time when family members were unable to visit. The hospital staff were the only people in close contact with him and used the diary to relay what was happening to Michael day by day. The patient diary was gifted to him when he was finally discharged from the critical care unit. Along with the notebook, Michael has brought the many letters, drawings and notes that his young fans sent to him while he was in hospital. Currently being stored in a messy bundle, Chris gets to work to create a more fitting tribute for the thoughtful artwork, leaving the usually eloquent Michael momentarily lost for words.

Next into the barn are Dr Adrian and his daughter Lydia with a 1960s GP's bag holding memories of Adrian's late father Noel. Born in Burma, Noel attended medical school in the 1950s but came to the UK in the 1960s to escape the military regime. Once here, Noel found work as a GP and spent his entire career dedicating himself to the NHS. His son also became a GP, and his granddaughter Lydia is currently training to be a dentist, meaning his lifetime dedication to healthcare lives on in his family. Leather expert Suzie Fletcher joins forces with silversmith Brenton West, who needs to get Noel's old medical instruments back in working order.

The barn's final visitors are another NHS family. Husband and wife Bill and Kate and their daughter Fiona have all worked for the NHS. They've brought along an old wooden desk that Bill saved from being thrown away when he was a student at nursing school in 1987. Bill went on to do all his studying at the desk and subsequently spent 37 years specialising in mental health. His wife Kate has worked for many years as an NHS administrator, also using the desk to study for her own qualifications. Now daughter Fiona is working as an occupational therapist in an NHS community mental health team, something that makes her parents very proud. Woodwork whizz Will Kirk is tasked with revamping this important little desk in tribute to their hard work.