Myleene Klass Matron, Medicine and Me: 70 Years of the NHS

70 years ago, plans for a revolution took place

that changed all of our lives in Britain.

We're out to improve the health of

every family and the whole nation.

Its name - the National Health Service.

We're taking a look at the NHS then and now.

-MACHINES BEEP

-Adrenaline!

-He's had six adrenaline...

SIRENS WAIL To see how much it's changed...

Is that real?

..to meet staff and patients...

Let me help you out. Sorry, it's my first day here.

..with extraordinary medical stories.

-You died, basically?

-For three minutes, yes.

-0h!

It's quite emotional seeing you! Thank you.

-Surprise!

-ALL: SURPRISE

I'm Myleene Klass and there's one

area of NHS care that means a lot to me - nursing.

I need a doctor! I need a nurse!

It means a lot to me personally because of one very special person.

My mum. She came here as a nurse 41 years ago.

You have so much courage.

I'm so proud of you.

-I love you, Myleene!

-Oh!

I want to find out her story and the story of the millions of other

nurses who have made the NHS what it is today.

I'm starting my journey on the 10.36 service to Great Yarmouth.

But I'm not travelling alone. Joining me is my mum who worked as a

nurse in the NHS for eight years.

Aw! Look at you!

Look at the shoes!

Yeah, well, that's not exactly the

-uniform shoes but...

-I can tell.

But I had just finished my shift

and then we were just about to go to a party.

And that uniform, was it nice to wear?

I liked the uniform but the shoes, I didn't like.

The shoes that we wear, I didn't like it one bit.

-TRAIN ANNOUNCER:

-..To Great Yarmouth at 11.12.

We're actually going to the hospital where my mum first

came to in Great Yarmouth where she was training as a nurse...

-when you first came from the Philippines, right?

-Yeah.

-Do you think you'll remember what it all looked like?

-No, I don't.

I don't. I'm sort of expecting lots of changes, I think.

I mean you're talking about many years ago.

-TRAIN PA:

-Final station is Great Yarmouth.

We're home!

It's always special coming back to Great Yarmouth.

This is where my mum settled when she arrived from the Philippines

and it's where she fell in love with my dad.

We lived here as a family and I went to school here, but the truth is,

I really don't know a lot about my mum's life as a nurse.

So today is my chance to fill in the blanks.

Mum worked in the town's Northgate Hospital.

Back in the '70s, it was a busy local hospital.

Today, it looks quite a bit different.

She hasn't been back here for over 30 years so I'm not sure how she'll be feeling.

SHE LAUGHS

Wow. Lots of change. This is new.

-This looks new.

-Amazing.

-What about the smell? Does that smell the same?

-Lovely smell.

-Better smell actually.

-Better smell. Oh, God.

-I feel strange, I really do.

-Are you getting upset?

Quiet but...nice.

Aw, come here!

I didn't think that I would feel it this way. 41 years ago.

You set me off now! Oh, my gosh.

It's clear that just being here is making the memories flood

-back for Mum.

-Oh, this is the one. I remember this.

-Remember the rails?

-Oh, my God!

-Yep.

But her experience isn't unique.

That's right, now get the head well back, seal off the nose.

That's right. Put your mouth right the way around her mouth...

With a new dressing perhaps you'll sleep for a little while.

Thanks, Nurse.

In its early days, like now, the NHS was understaffed

and struggling to cope with demand.

-Nurse?

-Nurse?

-Nurse!

-Come quickly, please!

-Nurse!

-My children need you!

-Nurse!

In response, the service looked to

recruit people from all over the world.

Many of the nurses working in our hospitals today

come from overseas and with the shortage of hospital staff

as it is, it would be very difficult to run our hospitals without them.

And thousands came from the Philippines, including my mum.

It can't have been easy as an ethnic

minority especially in very different times.

I know what it was like for me as, like, second-generational, being

a mixed race kid growing up in Norfolk, but for you as a first generation...

Yeah. Well, you can feel it.

You can feel inside you that they're a bit reluctant at first

but then, I am there to do a job so I have to approach them first

I have to inject myself to them

and, well, you know, if they accept me, fine.

If they don't accept me, I will still insist that they...

-You know, I have to do something.

-"I'm GOING to help you!"

I'll have to do something for them to gain their trust,

that I am their friend to start with.

I like that they didn't know if you spoke English.

Yeah, well, they thought that, you know, I can't speak English,

until you open your mouth and say, "Hello everybody."

You used to be an English teacher so you probably speak the best English!

Yeah, but they don't know that, do they?

I know that you told me that you used to love working in paediatrics

-with the babies and also geriatrics with the elderly.

-Yeah.

But what was your hardest story?

Well there's this couple and they are always together,

always have their breakfast together, holding hands,

and then one day, it was the woman who just turned up.

And she was asking for her husband

because they have to have breakfast at the same time.

-So, he was a patient at the hospital?

-Both of them were patients.

And after that, she was told that her husband passed away.

And, a few hours later, she went as well.

She didn't say a word. She just said, "That's it".

But it really, really got me. I didn't...

I didn't sleep for a few nights. It's hard.

Because I've known them for a while.

And after that,

I asked for a day off because it's not easy to take in.

Especially when you made friends with them and...

But again I was told that it's all part of the parcel of your job.

You have to accept it and be strong.

-So you didn't get that day off?

-No, I didn't. They just gave me a cup of tea.

-MYLEENE LAUGHS What, the nurses did?

-Yeah.

It's been such an incredible day today, hanging out

with my mum and just seeing her,

come alive as she relives some of those tales from 41 years ago.

I feel really fired up now

and I would like to speak to some staff and nurses who are working

in the NHS today and hear what they have to say about their experiences.

I especially want to see how things have changed from how it was

then to what is now. So, I've decided to head to Belfast.

The Trust here is one of the biggest employers in the NHS

and I'm coming to one of its busiest hospitals -

the Royal Victoria Hospital in the west of the city.

The hospital was already well established

when the NHS started but it's grown a lot.

And today Belfast Trust hospitals and services care for over

a million people a year.

'I'll be based in Ward 4A. A fracture unit.

'As with the early NHS, many of the staff here come from overseas

'including quite a few from the Philippines.

'And they seem to know my mum!' Did you hear that?!

DID YOU HEAR THAT?!

"How's your mum?" I know!

Among the Filipino nurses on the ward is Leonila Agonia.

-So, I have to ask you, when did you come over?

-2003. Way back in 2003.

-13 years ago.

-So what made you come here?

Oh, well, I just tried to take a chance, you know

to widen the horizon of my nursing profession.

-We don't have anything like the NHS in the Philippines.

-No.

It's different, it's a big, big difference.

Well, you have to be able to look after yourself and your family.

You have to be able to find yourself over there, but here...

The country looks after the country.

My mum, when she came over, she wanted just to go somewhere cold.

Why is that? Why would you want to be cold? We all want to be hot!

-I'm second-generation though.

-I know, I know.

Do you think that your mum still likes here after all these years?

My mum can't cope with the heat.

-Can't tolerate it any more. Me too. Me too.

-THE ACCENT!

-Is she picking up the accent?

-Yeah!

-Oh, aye!

-Oh, aye!

LAUGHTER

Oh, aye.

Ward 4A is part of a modern wing of the Royal Victoria.

Everything around here is shiny bright but I want to see

how the hospital would have looked before it was taken

over by the NHS. So I've come deep into the old part of the hospital.

Old Victorian wards like this were built in very different times.

I'm just weary and fed up with it....

And the cockroaches, well, till lately,

they've been eating us alive.

And I think it's downright shame that we should live under

these conditions.

Average life expectancy was around 50 and the

main causes of death were infectious and respiratory in nature.

Many poor house hospitals were seen more as gateways to the

funeral parlour than places to get better.

And that's only if you could get in.

Prior to the NHS, medical treatment in places like the Royal

would've been mainly for those who could afford it.

I'm joining former surgeon Professor Richard Clarke in one

of the original corridors.

So we're obviously in the Victorian quarter of the hospital

but when was this actually built?

Well, it was built in 1900, 1901,

and then it was finally opened in 1903.

Ooft. They threw it up!

What about all these arches that we see here with the names above them?

These arches, there were originally 17 wards so

the arches lead into to the 17 wards that were off the corridor.

And then there were three more wards added later.

Each ward had its own kitchen, its own operating theatre in the case

of the surgical wards, but basically the wards had 20 patients in them,

originally no curtains around the beds, they were just packed.

-All in there together like sardines.

-Yes.

When the 1946 NHS Act came into force,

Victorian hospitals like the Royal were taken out of private hands

and into control of the state.

Nurses and doctors would now give their services to people

free at the point of use.

It was a breath of fresh air for patients of all social classes

and in the case of the Royal, that meant in more ways than one

as the hospital's revolutionary air conditioning system now

became for the benefit of all.

Today, the engineers have fired it up for me.

It's smelly, noisy and kind of beautiful.

How ahead of its time was this machine?

Well, it was ahead in the sense that it was the first purpose-built

air-conditioned hospital in the world.

These engines drive enormous hand blades and they suck in the air

from the street and the air is purified and humidified.

Wow.

-Wow!

-Yes. This is the van. Enormous, isn't it?

It's huge!

And freezing!

-SHE LAUGHS

-Yes.

Yes, Well, it takes a big fan to bring in enough air to

-supply all those 20 wards.

-And it's still supplying now?

-20 wards. No, no, because the wards have been pulled down now.

-Oh.

-So this is not really used for that purpose at all.

-What's it used for now?

Well, nothing, it's just ornamental.

Huge ornament!

Young men and small boys who like the look of it...

-You've shown me one air con unit that's still running 100 years later.

-Yes.

Being in the older part of the Royal Victoria Hospital,

seeing the turbines,

the plaques above the wards named after the great and the good that

helped finance them, you get a real sense of history of the place.

However, call me biased here, you

can't help thinking that the back bone of this hospital,

and actually all the hospitals across the UK, is down to this lot.

Up on Ward 4A, it's nearly lunchtime.

And the food is being plated up.

It's a task carried out by those known as the domestic staff.

They've been on the wards since before even my mum's time.

-NEWSCASTER:

-Unless the team is complete with its domestic workers,

it cannot function efficiently.

Without their support, hospitals could not carry on.

Already wards have had to be closed for lack of domestic help.

Patients are waiting to come in,

but unfortunately the matron has no alternative.

This is really important work and a job you can be proud of doing.

Please, come and help us.

Today, I'll be doing just that.

Reporting for duty. Hi, Sister!

-Hello!

-Hi!

-What do you think?

-Oh, looking well.

-Right.

-Are you ready for this?

-I am ready.

-OK. Basically, you're just going to be

asking for each one of them throughout that menu.

Great, OK. Hi, Tita, please may I have a roast chicken...

Roast chicken.

With mashed carrot and turnips, and mashed potatoes with gravy.

-This is Noreena.

-Is this my dinner, is it?

-Your dinner is coming.

I've got your dinner. Let me help you out.

Sorry, it's my first day here.

You should take me glasses off...

No, you're fabulous.

-Hugh.

-Hugh?

Hello, sir. Dinner is served. And it looks good.

You've got chicken, you've got mash, you've got turnip.

You want custard? Do you know, I knew it.

I'm going to get you some custard.

-Extra.

-Hurry back.

-I will hurry back.

-What's your name, Sir?

-Ray.

-Ray. Nice to meet you, I'm Myleene.

-I will be serving your ice cream and jelly today.

-Lovely.

Ice cream and jelly, I mean, stuff of dreams.

-Stuff of dreams all right.

-Stuff of dreams.

-Thank you, my darling, thank you very much.

-You are very welcome, sir.

I mean, that looks amazing.

Da-dada-da-dada-da!

Stick to the piano.

MYLEENE LAUGHS

Did you hear that? "Stick to the piano," he said.

The meals served in the Royal these days are made off-site

and transported in on a daily basis.

Back in the early days of the NHS, however, food would have all

been cooked within the hospital itself where, it's fair to say,

it gained a reputation for being less than scrumptious.

So, how does this modern grub taste? Only one way to find out.

I'm probably not supposed to do this but it looks so good!

-Can I try the pudding?

-Yes, of course. Yeah.

-Oooh!

-You like the custard?

-I love custard!

-Oh, very good.

Hospital food rocks. Ta-da!

Not that such praise will get me out of the washing up, of course.

OK, so push in.

Got it!

I know that Ward 4A is very different in design to what

wards would have been like when NHS first started.

But I'm also wondering if the atmosphere was any different.

Back then hospital wards were run by matrons

and nurses worked under strict rules.

I have to be honest, my knowledge of this era comes

mostly from the Carry On movies, with Hattie Jacques terrorising

Kenneth Williams and the gang.

-Good morning, Doctor.

-Morning. Get your clothes off. I'll with you in a minute.

I don't think that'll be necessary, thank you, Doctor.

-Oh, I'm awfully sorry, I wasn't expecting you, Matron.

-Obviously.

So how different is it today?

In charge of Ward 4A isn't Matron, but Head Sister, Sinead Dalfarge.

Sinead, you're the ward sister here. What's it like?

-Do you rule with an iron fist?

-I wish I did. I wish I did.

Then maybe the rest of them would just run with me, so they would.

Unfortunately it's not that here.

I have a great team of nurses behind me.

Now, don't get me wrong we do have our bad days.

Staffing can be an issue at times, as we well know.

But I have to say that they do get on with it,

they muck in, get-together work it out, so they do.

-But generally overall, they're happy.

-We love you, Sister.

-We love you!

-There you go.

-There is clearly a lot of camaraderie here.

-There is.

-A lot of banter.

-There is.

But I have to say, they do get on very well

there's a good team.

My mum's a nurse and she's talked about how you get through

the dark days together, like a couple that died within hours of

each other, it's just something that I don't think you can ever forget.

Especially if somebody that's been here for weeks,

and say does get very unwell and unfortunately does pass

away you can see it with the nurses and it does really affect them.

-It does.

-That's why you all then just club together again.

-You do.

-As a big family.

-You do. Everybody's there to support each other.

Sentiments I think my mum would agree with.

As is Sinead's answer to my next question.

-What would you say is special about nursing?

-Helping patients.

I have to manage a ward, I have to manage staff,

but at the end of the day if you've got a patient and especially a

very ill patient and you manage to see them

through from the preoperative period right through operation,

postoperation, to seeing them go out the door, it really lifts it,

and that's what makes it all worthwhile.

The story of the kind of modern patient care

that Sinead is talking about began with a massive period of NHS

investment and expansion in the 1960s.

The hospitals built in Victorian times

and taken over by the NHS were seen as no longer fit for purpose.

-NEWSCASTER:

-Asbestos sheeting, corrugated iron, hardboard timber...

There's no longer any room for more.

It's hard to realise that this is a key hospital serving a large

area in 1958.

The health revolution actually started here, in Northern Ireland.

Up the road from Belfast, at Altnagelvin Hospital, in Londonderry.

Opened in 1960, it was the first entirely new hospital to be

built by the NHS.

Five decades on and they're

in the middle of building a brand-new cancer centre.

Patients will come in here, basically they'll go this way for radiotherapy

planning and treatment and they'll go this way into chemotherapy.

Historian, Sean Lucey has agreed to meet me here.

After our short tour he's taking me

through the hospital's original plans.

These are the original designs of the hospital dating from 1952.

And we can see here the multistorey aspect of the hospital

starting off with the operating theatres on the seventh floor,

the laboratories below that, two maternity wards on the

fifth and fourth floor, radiography, that's third floor.

So, just looking at it, it looks quite simplistic.

At the time was this something that was quite progressive?

At the time, this was highly revolutionary because it was

such an unusual building.

It was initially described as, "a Mediterranean

-hotel" in the local press!

-THEY LAUGH

-Hugely progressive.

-Hugely progressive!

And highly reflective of the time period when people had

confidence in the future and had confidence in the capacity

for new technology, medical technology.

A new hospital building programme is underway...

It's amazing to think that my mum was beginning her NHS career

when all this incredible change was happening.

It was a period when the population was booming,

society was changing fast, and the NHS had to keep up.

We even saw the first computers.

-NEWSCASTER:

-At King's College hospital in London,

they're already trying out a prototype computer that can

not only help doctors decide on treatment, but also run a hospital.

-Logan, how is he?

-He's doing very well.

-Good.

Let's just have a look at this screen.

This is the sort of equipment we will be using in the years to come.

And in the next 20 years it will be a commonplace thing in all

hospitals in Great Britain.

So what impact did all this technological change

have on the nurses?

So things were progressing very quickly in the '60s.

All these buildings were being made,

but you need nurses to help facilitate them.

So, my mum got the call to come over from the Philippines in the '60s.

Of course! Because there was this whole new hospital plan introduced,

and there was this whole range of new hospitals developed like this.

So presumably, that must have been a really exciting time to be

working in the health service. How did this all affect nursing?

It actually affected nursing dramatically,

because there was this enhanced medical technology

and of course, the people who had to use the technology were the nurses.

Well, nurses always know more than the doctors. Fact.

-Of course they do!

-THEY LAUGH

And this was recognised in 1967 when one of the most significant

moments in nursing history took place.

The Salmon Report recommended a change to the senior nursing structure.

All nurses of the future

were to be given more contact with patients and greater responsibility.

-NEWSCASTER:

-A new kind of nurse, far from the Florence Nightingale image.

A medical technician with electronic as well as medical training

dealing with machines as well as people.

I'm meeting two ladies who were here right

when the hospital opened,

to find out how they reacted to these changes.

Ursula Clifford was just beginning her career

and was here before even the patients.

Kathleen Gallagher came from the local Ear, Nose and Throat Hospital

and arrived a few weeks later.

So, Kathleen, what have you got there?

I have got a cutting from the Belfast newsletter, February 2nd, 1960.

"Londonderry's new hospital."

This is the matron that we had then. Miss Betty Boyce.

-What kind of matron was she?

-She was just a lovely matron.

When she saw something on her ward rounds, she would have

come back up in the afternoon again to make sure it was looked about.

-And brought her little dog.

-Dog?!

-She had a dog, a Dachshund.

You're kidding me. On the wards? I don't know if that would be

-allowed now, would that be?

-Oh, not at all.

-And you've kept that all this time?

-Oh, I did of course, yes.

Sure, it's lovely to look back on these things.

Can you show me what you've brought? What have you got there, Ursula?

-Well, I really think that this is me here in the canteen.

-Oh, look!

Look at your uniform. It's lovely.

You had a dress, an apron, cuffs and a cap.

-It's lovely. So smart.

-And a collar.

And a collar. All stiffly starched.

So, did you spend all day having to clean your uniforms as well?

Oh, no, no, no, no, we'd the new big laundry over across the way.

-Of course, it was all new now!

-Oh, yes! Big, big laundry.

And everything, you packed up at the end of the each week.

You packed up your unclean uniforms and over they went

to the laundry and back they came

with your name on, all very nice and clean.

You could say you could face an army. It would give you great

encouragement when you had your cap on you.

My mum, however, was not a huge fan of the shoes.

Did you feel the same way?

Well, the thing is that you were supposed to wear sensible shoes

because you walked so much. And you had to make sure they were black.

-Yeah.

-And that they were shining.

So what were the biggest changes?

The thing for me as the most junior person in the hospital

was the bedpan washer. Marvellous invention!

-Marvellous invention because before...

-Hand? By hand?

-Yeah!

-Of course.

-And now you had this machine

and you walked in and you dumped it all in and pushed the door. Out came

-the...

-Like a dishwasher?

-Oh, beautiful!

So you're not doing the bedpans any more, what are the bigger changes?

You did away with the Nightingale wards.

The Nightingale wards where you

would have had a big, big, big ward full of beds.

Now you had four-bed wards, single rooms,

and the biggest ward was the six bedded ward.

So really there was more walking and looking after

the patients but their privacy was well improved.

Kathleen, what about you? What was the biggest difference between the

old school kind of nursing and then moving here?

The one thing that I thought about being theatres.

The patient came in the bed that they were in, in the ward

went into theatre, they were anaesthetised on their bed

and lifted onto the theatre table.

Now I had left a hospital where I had a canvas on my table

which we put two long poles into and two bars and you

rang a wee bell three times and a porter

and a nurse came in and they carried the patient upstairs or downstairs.

So let me get this right? You would

have to carry, manually, a stretcher up and down flights of stairs.

That's correct.

We were on the middle floor. Down one flight and up two flights.

Being introduced to the lifts here must have been like a dream come true.

Of course. And it was just you rolled a patient onto the bed.

There was no physical lifting. It was just lovely.

It was so lovely speaking to Ursula and Kathleen.

They are just like my mum. When they talk about nursing, they light up.

And to have been there at the start of a new era

in medicine, it must have been amazing for them.

Back in the 21st century at the Royal Victoria Hospital in

Belfast, Dr Paul Robinson has started his rounds.

It's a chance for me to delve a bit deep into life on Ward 4A.

-So, Paul, you're Junior Doctor here on the ward?

-That's right, yeah.

Start of the day, what can I expect? What's happening here?

Well, basically, I'm from the medical team, so my job basically is to make sure that

all of the sick and elderly patients are sort of fit to go to theatre.

And this is primarily a word for fractures?

Yes, fracture unit. One of the fracture wards here.

-And how many patients do have at the moment here?

-I think it's about 24. Thereabouts.

Is that busy? Is that a lot?

It is quite a lot. There's not very

many staff between the 24 patients, so yeah, it is quite busy, you know.

-So, you're talking to the daughter of a nurse.

-OK.

-So, tread carefully.

I think I know what the answer is to that.

THEY LAUGH

Who's in charge? Because there kind of has always historically been the

doctors knowing more than the nurses but really the nurses knowing more than the doctors.

We like to think we're in charge but I think, really deep down, the nurses run the ward.

-They make sure we're doing our jobs.

-Saved yourself.

You saved yourself because you're

outnumbered because there's a lot of nurses in that direction.

Most of the operations that take place on this word are pretty

routine. People who have experienced falls or nasty knocks.

But being here, I can't help thinking about the incredible

breakthroughs in surgery that have happened because of the NHS.

This was especially true from the 1960s onwards

when some real medical firsts took place.

The first modern hip replacement was carried out.

The first liver and kidney transplant, and in 1974,

the very first clinical use of a CT scan.

It must have been so exciting for the likes of my mum to

be around in those days.

And the patients on this part of the ward are exactly the sort

she would have looked after back in her day.

'So, I want to say hello to some of them.' How are you doing?

Oh, dear, Walter. What have you done?

I have slipped on grass and fell and broke my ankle.

I have a steel pin already in.

This leg, I broke this leg earlier.

So, really with those pins in there, you don't

really need a surgeon, you need a mechanic.

THEY LAUGH This leg's getting shorter and shorter.

-What's the giant R for on the other leg?

-This is just to keep the surgeons right.

-To let them know it's this leg they need to operate on.

-Oh, my gosh!

I'm an old soldier here.

So I've had a liver transplant here, I've been

about the wards for a while.

So, when you come back it's like a revolving door for you? The nurses must be like, "Him again."

It's first name terms with most of the staff.

Knock, knock! Hello!

Hi, Mary. How are you doing?

'Next door Mary has just come out of her operation.

'And she's still about woozy.' How are you feeling?

Feeling a bit better than I was.

So have they been looking after you here?

-Have they taken good care of you?

-Oh, yes, they're really great.

The nurses and staff are good and the doctors are good.

So I can see you've got lots of lovely cards here, have your family been to see you?

Oh, yes.

On the face of it,

the Royal Victoria seems to be a very normal NHS hospital.

The type of which you'd see right across the UK.

But it's got a history that is anything but typical and

certainly nothing my mum would have faced in quiet old Great Yarmouth.

EXPLOSION

SIRENS

During the 1970s and '80s the Royal was at the centre

of a conflict that tested the nurses' caring to the limit.

The hospital played a crucial role in the troubles

when over 3,500 people were killed.

Many more were injured and in need of urgent hospital treatment.

Here in the centre of West Belfast, behind the barbed wire

and the soldiers, is, surprisingly, a hospital.

Its casualty department is in the thick of the fighting.

While I'm here,

I want to talk to some of the people who were on the front line.

Kay and Lorna were experienced

nurses and working as health visitors.

But Jean had only just begun to train as a nurse, along with

Horace here, at the Royal Victoria Hospital.

What was it like for them?

You were in a war zone, so right outside the walls the shooting

and the bombing was going on close to the hospital

and all too often that war would spill into the hospital.

A man and a girl had arrived at the entrance to the hospital.

He was taking his friend from an X-ray and a lone gunman

was waiting for them. He fired between three and five shots.

The man fell to the ground bleeding...

We were, most of us were 18, 19 years of age

and going back to the nurses homes and getting into a room

together with a cup of coffee, we really debriefed each other.

We didn't realise what we were doing in those days.

We'd just talked to each other and that was really what helped us to cope.

I think that as ward sisters we weren't feeling enough of how

young people of 18 felt with handling limbs, serious injuries

maybe being handed a dead... One nurse was handed a dead baby.

So, can I ask you, what part did the NHS's ethos

play in the neutrality of how patients were treated?

The neutrality came automatically. You didn't think about it.

We had a full range of political feelings among the nursing workforce.

And actually nurses from both those traditions recently have

gone on the record to say that

when they came to hospital they left their politics at the hospital door.

You just accepted that you are a nurse

and you are on their side, whatever it is, and you are on their side

in terms of health because that's what we were trying to deliver.

And that's something which I think our profession can be really

proud because you saw the results of a bomb

and yet, you had to keep how you felt about that to yourself, get on,

do the job and look after the people who really needed you.

Jean, what was the hardest thing that you experienced? Or that you saw?

In my first year of nursing inside a very short period of time I was

asked to look after a dying soldier and stay with him until he died.

He was blown up very close to the hospital on was brought to theatre

and nothing could be done and he was brought to recovery room

and I had never stayed with anybody before who was dying

so I stayed with him,

screens were pulled round and I just tried to make him

aware that I was there and just wash off the dust of the bomb

and he looked physically strong but obviously had a lot of internal injuries.

And staying with him till he died...

And then, inside a short period of time

I was in another ward where I was asked to special, or be patient,

just one nurse to one patient, with a young man who had been making

a bomb and blew himself up.

-And he also was dying.

-Good Lord! You're kidding me?

So, here I was with two very different sets of circumstances

but knowing in my mind that there's no opt-out clause in nursing,

you do what you're asked to do.

The '70s were also an era

when another battle was taking place inside the Royal Victoria

and in hospitals throughout the whole of the UK.

A battle between the sexes.

Right up to the '70s, nursing was widely considered a female

occupation, there to serve the mostly male consultants.

But things were starting to change as this fantastic local news

report I'm showing the gang, demonstrates.

-Do you think of doctors as husbands?

-They're like any other men.

Big headed, selfish, conceited... You name it.

Well, I feel that a doctor treats a nurse as a machine,

you run to his beck and call, and if I was his wife

and I had to run to his beck and call, I don't I'd be too well pleased about it.

There was one consultant in particular

and when he entered the ward, everybody metaphorically,

and sometimes physically stood to attention.

And there had to be absolutely nothing going on.

If a patient badly wanted the bedpan, he would have to wait until he had gone.

So there was a very hierarchical structure at that time.

By the '70s, the consultant-led male hierarchy was on its way out.

And Lorna remembers being part of the revolution in a small way.

On Sunday morning, the nurses,

the new clean, white, fresh coats were put out for the consultants

and doctors in the clinical room and it was the nurse's job to

change the buttons, you know, from the dirty uniform.

And the first rebellion I did was,

I said, "You can change your own buttons."

From now on, nurses are not changing doctor's buttons on doctor's coats.

That is not nursing.

But it wasn't just the females questioning

the traditional roles of males in the NHS,

men were also increasingly moving into nursing.

Something once considered a newsworthy curiosity.

Male nurses do the same work as other nurses

and they have the same training

although they don't usually work in women's wards or study midwifery.

What sort of young men do you need in hospitals?

We need, I think first, people with common sense.

How does he react to pain and suffering?

Well, at first it's not very nice.

But one does get used to these things.

Horace was one of these heroic pioneers.

I want to know what his early days would have been like on the ward.

Your working colleagues were nurses. I didn't see them as females.

I saw them as nurses and colleagues.

So, it was nice.

Being surrounded by ladies. I didn't think of them in that context.

You all work together. It was a working environment, so,

I didn't see it as a male versus female thing.

I just want to say thank you so much for your time today.

I could talk to you all day. For hours.

It's been a fascinating visit to the Royal Victoria Hospital

seeing how it was then and now. But it but it's time for me

to say my goodbyes to the people I've met in Ward 4A.

It may have been a short visit, but I've met many people I won't forget.

-Especially Leonila.

-You're welcome!

-Thank you. Yeah, no, I'd love to come back.

-Aw! That's so nice.

-Have you enjoyed your stay?

-I've had a really, really, really amazing time.

-Oh, that's good.

-I really have.

One thing I didn't expect was how I'd feel about the generations

that had come before who'd paved the way for where we are now.

When you hear about how they made these amazing sacrifices

-and had to challenge themselves.

-Yeah.

When you think that they had to treat people that in normal life

-they wouldn't even speak to.

-That's right.

-And yet,

when you come into the hospital environment...

-You make a bond with them.

-Everybody's equal. Yeah.

-Patients are all that matter.

-Yeah, that's what they said!

-And these girls here are great.

My favourite!

-Am I allowed to eat them?

-Help yourself.

One, two, three, four, five boxes of chocolate!

-Yeah, every single day.

-Oh, my gosh.

My teeth would fall out if I worked here. Thank you for having me!

-No bother at all.

-Thank you.

-Thank you for coming.

-I have to do a photo with you!

OK, ready?

There, I can show my mum. Oh, my knee just went.

I need a doctor!

No, I need a nurse! MY KNEE JUST WENT!

-Hello! Hello, Walter what do you think of the scrubs?

-They suit you.

-They're good, aren't they?

-Super.

-Super!

"Sticks to ya where it hits ya"?

Yes, it's not the most flattering lines...

-I'm just going to leave it.

-Best of luck. Take care of yourself.

-Thank you very much for coming. Thank you.

-Cheerio.

"Fits ya where it hits ya."

There's something very humbling about seeing the work has been

carried out here today.

The lives of the patients have been changed by

the hard work that the nurses have put in on Ward 4A.

And when you think about it, right across the UK alone, today,

over 19,000 surgical procedures have been carried

out for free at the point of delivery, to those in need.

NHS!

ALL: NHS!

THEY LAUGH

These last few days have really given me

an insight into the how the NHS has evolved over the years.

'It's also helped me understand my mum a bit more, too.

'So, I've arranged one final treat for her.

'We're off to visit someone very special.'

Back in the 1960s,

my mum viewed fellow nurse Denise Albin as her mentor.

There were also best friends.

She was at my mum's wedding and when I was born, she became my godmother.

They haven't seen each other for a while,

so, I'm hoping it's a nice surprise. So, have you twigged yet?

-Have you figured out where we are?

-Yeah, my friend's house! My word.

-Fantastic. Really can't believe it.

-Getting all emotional on me again?

-Oh, my word.

-Ring the bell.

'I just hope Denise is in.'

Hi!

You!

Oh, Bong!

THEY LAUGH

It's really nice to see you.

-It's good to see you too.

-And you've not grown.

THEY LAUGH

No. Oh.

-Thank you.

-Come in.

-Thank you for having us.

-Wow.

So, would you say you're like a family together?

Yeah, and we had a very good group...

-We had a good group on our ward, didn't we?

-Yeah. It's just like teamwork. You know?

As soon as we are in the ward and that's it, we help each other.

My mum's first memory of you which she always tells me about,

is you leaving her in a room with a dead body.

I know, when anyone died on the ward,

because we used to lay bodies out, then, I used to

volunteer to do them because I used to want to do them fairly quickly.

I didn't want to be asked several hours after they'd died so...

Well, she said, "Wait for a while because I forgot something in the

"station, the nurse's station." And I said, "No, you're not going to leave me here."

So I followed her everywhere with my bucket.

-She's followed you around ever since?

-Well, she didn't want to be

alone with a body so she's always followed me.

THEY LAUGH

Yeah. Fantastic.

I found this, and I'm sure that you had one

because I'm sure they were all filled in.

Yeah, it sounds familiar.

-It's actually got Care of the Dying in here.

-Really?

And that would have been one of the procedures you had to do.

'I brought along something, too.

'Snaps of my time at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast.'

I wonder if my mum prefers the modern fashion a bit more

-than the vintage getup she wore?

-I like this a lot better.

Yeah, we always had dresses rather than trousers, didn't we?

-That's right, yeah, yeah. I like that too.

-Yeah, that's smart.

The nurses I spoke to said that the pride that they had

when they put those uniforms on, they said it

was like putting on their armour for the day and they feel immense pride.

-Yeah.

-Oh, yeah.

-Is that how you felt?

-Yeah.

-It's nice.

My favourite bit of the uniform was the cloak. Did you have a cloak?

-Yeah, Florence Nightingale. I kept mine, actually.

-Did you?

-Where?!

I've been asking you!

You didn't cut it up and make something of it, did you? Because... She was always sewing, wasn't she?

-Yeah.

-What did you do with the cloak?

-Well...

THEY LAUGH

-I cut it because one of your plays.

-What, I wore the cloak? You cut up your nurse's uniform?

-No, I did, yeah. Yeah.

-You owe the national health.

I think you guys have more than paid back. I think it's OK.

Like, learning what I've learnt over the last few days,

you have so much courage. I'm so proud of you.

-I love you, Myleene!

-OH! You are one strong lady.

I am, I'm proud of both of you. OK, so in honour of your work, not only

as a nurse, but of your services to fashion, I've got a present for you.

Oh, no, you're joking.

-Would you wear those?

-No.

No way.

Seeing my mum and my auntie Denise, all those incredible nurses,

both past and present,

you realise just how much of themselves they give to our NHS.

Time, love, caring.

These nurses, they simply are incredible

and they should be celebrated.

Thank you.