Oritse Williams 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...

-Adrenaline!

-He's had six adrenaline.

..to see how much has 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.

It's quite emotional seeing you. Thank you.

-Surprise!

-ALL: Surprise!

I'm Oritse Williams and I know first-hand how hard it can be

caring for someone you love when they fall ill.

-They've gone from being our men to being our kids.

-Yeah.

And now I want to find out more about how the NHS

takes care of our ageing population.

That's all our mums and dads, grannies and grandpas.

This is my favourite singer now. Yeah, my new favourite singer!

I'm mostly known for my time in JLS.

We sold over ten million records worldwide

and had five UK number ones.

It was quite a ride.

But what's less well-known is what fuelled that journey.

When I was 12 years old,

my mother was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

And, er...it was a huge impact on all of our family.

Obviously, I'm my mother's eldest son -

I just felt like I had to be the one to be there.

I lost a bit of my childhood, you could say,

but at the same time, I had to grow up a lot quicker and, er...I learnt

about taking responsibility and taking care of the people you love.

Obviously, that was my whole determination behind music,

was to give my mum a better life.

And without that, I don't think I'd be doing music.

I don't think I would've been a quarter as successful as I,

you know, was fortunate enough to become, you know.

It was hard to enjoy the success knowing that my mum

was going through such a difficult time.

Thankfully, she also had the support of the NHS,

but it's never been easy.

When I look back on it, it affected me

more than I realised in many ways.

And, um...as I get older, I thought it would probably get easier,

but it actually gets harder to accept and deal with.

And I know for, you know,

obviously, many people caring for loved ones,

no matter what the age...

..it probably doesn't get any easier, if truth be told.

I'm on my way to visit my mum.

She recently moved into supported accommodation.

It's the first time in nearly ten years that she's had her own place

and I'm dying to see how she's settling in.

-Hello, Oritse! Hi!

-Hi, Mum!

-How are you? Mwah!

-Mwah!

-This place has changed so much.

-Yeah!

Oh, my goodness! Is this your artwork?

Yes, it is.

What, you painted all these? That's amazing!

-How are you settling in, Mum?

-Very well.

Yeah? Are you enjoying it?

It's very nice because you get around

and you meet the other residents.

-You got all these new red cushions. You put red in it.

-Yeah.

-Do you think that's enough? Three there...

-Yeah.

-..and two there.

-They look beautiful.

In many ways, my mum has the best of both worlds.

Lots of features in her house

allow her the independence she's been craving,

but there's also plenty of support just an alarm cord away.

It's great to see how well my mum's settling in.

It seems to have given her a whole new lease of life.

This is, er...really great because, you know,

everything in the kitchen is, like, wheelchair height,

so my mum can really do everything independently.

And what I also love

-is having that little garden out there.

-Yeah.

I plan to maybe, in a month or two,

-get some garden furniture.

-Yeah.

I could invite friends around.

The disease Mum has, multiple sclerosis,

has only really been understood since the 1960s,

when it was discovered to be a disease of the autoimmune system.

It affects movement, balance and, in my mum's case, her speech.

Over the last 50 years, advances

in MRI technology pioneered here in Britain

have allowed diagnosis to be made quicker and more efficiently.

Growing up, it was sometimes difficult.

Originally from the West Indies, Mum did it mostly on her own,

with the help of my grandma.

Supporting two boys and my sister was tough

and we frequently relied on hand-outs and food parcels.

When Mum, who was a qualified lawyer, got sick,

things got really tough.

Without the NHS free at the point of use, it would have been impossible.

I want to hear her thoughts on this period of our lives,

so I've brought along some photos that I found in a box at home.

-How old was I there?

-Now, you were about...

-I was about five? Seven?

No, I think six, seven.

-Six, seven. OK.

-Yeah.

-Do we look alike?

-Yes.

Yes. Same eyes.

-Definitely, same eyes.

-Yeah.

ORITSE LAUGHS

And, you know, around that time,

obviously, was when we found out you had multiple sclerosis, isn't it?

-It was just before then.

-Yeah. Just before then.

-Yeah.

-I was about 12 years old, at that time.

-Yeah.

I was really thinking recently about reflecting back, when I was 12,

you know, when things started to change.

I was thinking about the moment that really sunk in for me,

when, obviously, I realised that this is real.

I think it was the time when I found you in the bath, you were delirious,

I had to get you out of the bath myself.

That was definitely the moment that I realised that,

OK, something's definitely not right here.

Obviously, having my own son now,

I can't even imagine what you would have felt like as a parent,

you know, when, obviously, the diagnosis came.

Well, it's bad, but my opinion is

that you can't blame yourself

for these things that are happening to you.

-It is, sort of, out of your control.

-Yeah.

I brought this for you as a surprise, Mum.

You must have been about five years old then.

Yeah. I think you're right.

This is when...

Just before I came to England.

From Jamaica?

Yeah, from Jamaica. I was a pretty little girl, wasn't I?

You're still a pretty little girl now, Mum. HE LAUGHS

I tell you what, shall I put this up?

-Pride of position.

-Definitely.

Sort of, put it in the centre.

Here we go.

Yeah. I think it looks beautiful, don't you?

I like visiting my mum here.

As well as her house, there are shared gardens for walks

that also provide produce for all the residents.

There's also a central communal area

which contains my mum's favourite room by far,

the art room.

Well, you're the artist, Mum. So, you've got to tell me...

The small one.

Yes. And take it over to the table.

-OK.

-Now, I want... Over here.

-OK.

Come on, then.

To see my mum here, I'm over the moon.

She seems so much settled.

She seems happy.

You know, it's been a very, very long journey for us

to get to this point, where she's at a place where she can feel at home.

And I can see what it's doing for her self-esteem

and for her self-confidence.

I think every person, no matter what their age,

no matter what their ability, deserves to be happy.

And, ultimately, that's all that matters.

As a family, we owe so much to the NHS.

Thanks to it, we'll now have our mum into old age.

Yet, I don't really know that much about its history.

I want to go back to find out exactly how the NHS came into being.

And, to do that, I'm heading across the Severn Bridge to Wales...

..to a place where a man called Bevan was born.

As the Health Minister in 1946,

Aneurin Bevan is the politician credited as the father of the NHS.

And this is where he was born and raised,

the small town of Tredegar.

Back in the day, it was a centre for mining, iron and steel production

but it always had a revolutionary way of looking after

the health of its townsfolk.

It was called the Medical Aid Society

and those in work paid into a central fund

which was used for health services if and when needed.

I'm meeting local man Philip Prosser at the town library

to find out more.

These are the registers of the Medical Aid Society,

which are...

The people's names are here and the contributions are all in there

and where they worked,

if they worked in the mines, or in the steelworks.

-These are the people that benefited.

-Yeah. Yeah. Everybody here.

This is my father's contribution card to the Medical Aid Society.

Wow. Can I touch it?

-Yeah, no problem.

-Wow.

-So, these are the contributions...

-That he paid in.

You could see it was 12 pence. That was three weeks' payment.

And then, the whole family, after the head of the family paid in,

the whole family was connected with this.

Your family was part of this scheme?

Yeah, my family, and everybody benefited from it,

but the working-class people more than anyone.

Than anyone else, yeah. So, do you reckon Bevan, I guess,

-is some sort of hero in the town?

-Definitely. Definitely.

-Yeah.

That's crazy.

I mean, it might be a London thing,

why I don't really know much about this,

but it's mad to think that he's even contributed,

you know, to helping me and my family as well,

as well as everybody else in this country.

Wherever you go, if you mention Aneurin Bevan, I think

-people will know. Even in the north of England, whatever.

-Really? OK.

If you go to the north of England... I don't know about the south!

You know what I mean! But the working-class people...

The values that were enshrined in Tredegar's Medical Aid Society

survive even today in the modern NHS.

We all pay in, and it's free at the point of use, regardless of means.

The numbers are slightly bigger, of course.

Today, the annual budget of the combined NHS is around 116 billion,

but back at the very start, it was around 15 billion in today's money,

which, I guess, is why politicians argue over it.

In fact, the NHS was somewhat controversial at the beginning,

with some folk thinking it was just too much for the country to afford,

so Bevan had a lot of persuading to do.

Luckily, he was a fantastic orator.

There is a school of thought, you know, that believes that

if a thing is scarce, it ought to be dear.

Now, that's all right from the point of view of orthodox economics.

But this isn't an orthodox government,

and I'm not an orthodox Minister of Health.

LAUGHTER

I want to find out what motivated this unorthodox approach,

what inspired a seemingly ordinary man like Bevan

to do such an extraordinary thing as to set up the NHS,

so I've come with historian Dr Steven Thompson to the very spot

Bevan spent his formative years, the local council chambers of Tredegar.

Thank you.

So, this is where the Tredegar Urban District Council used to meet,

-and it's where the council still meets today.

-Wow.

Bevan was elected to the council in 1922, and local legend has it

that he sat on this back row during the council meetings.

-Are you serious?

-Either in the second or fourth seat in the row.

I am going to try and sit where he sat. OK.

Mr Bevan...

I think he sat either in the second one or that fourth one.

Oh! OK.

Let's hope it was this one, then!

So, what actually influenced Bevan

to, I guess, be the originator of the NHS?

I think a lot of it would have come from personal experience.

Two of Bevan's brothers died in infancy, for example,

another brother died in childhood.

His father died as a result of pneumoconiosis,

contracted whilst working in the coal industry here,

so, just like every other family here in South Wales,

he would have been very, very aware,

he would have had personal knowledge of those kind of hardships.

The idea of a national health service had been

debated in British politics for about 20 or 30 years by this point,

but Bevan brings his own personal experiences to bear

on this problem, and he brings his own political vision to bear.

The pioneering work Bevan witnessed in Tredegar became the basis

for the new NHS which, in 1946, he himself introduced to Parliament

and the nation.

On July 5th, the new National Health Service starts,

providing hospital and specialist services, medicines,

drugs and appliances, care of the teeth and eyes...

This new health service will be organised on a national scale,

as a public responsibility.

Enshrined in Bevan's new act was a promise to take

care of the country's health, from cradle to grave

and, in the process, increase the life expectancy for everyone,

and, boy, has it succeeded in doing just that!

Back in the 1940s,

the average person lived to just 63 years of age, and geriatrics,

as a medical discipline, was still being established.

The old people are a growing problem.

These times of medical advance

and longer life have produced an ageing population.

Today, we live an average of 15 years longer,

meaning people like my mum can look forward to their old age.

However, living longer brings a whole new

range of problems, like people having to live with conditions

associated with growing old.

For the next few days, I'm going

to base myself 15 miles south of Tredegar, in Cardiff.

I want to find out how far the NHS has come in its 70 years

of treatment of the elderly, and if Wales is still leading the way.

I'm starting my day by joining an NHS-funded team

in Cardiff & Vale University Health Board called React.

-She went out with you last time for a walk, wasn't it?

-Yeah.

This is the first and only such service in Wales,

and they help elderly patients

and their families who have reached mental health crisis point.

We have to accept that she will not be fully ready to

engage 100% in all those activities because she is still unwell.

What's been our experience all along is that

we get a little way with her and then slip back.

I've been invited by Dr Kate Hydon, speciality doctor in React.

She's working alongside psychiatrists,

mental health nurses and dementia care advisers in a team that

offers crisis medical support for people in dire need.

Dr Sabari is the team's clinical director

and consultant old-age psychiatrist.

We have a wide, safe care and treatment plan

within their own family environment

so that they can recover better and the crisis is abated,

-so that they don't need to come into hospital.

-OK, OK.

A large part of the React team's work

of course isn't done in offices.

It's out and about with patients, and this morning,

I am joining Dr Kate Hydon on a home visit.

En route, I'm keen to find out

what motivates her to work with the elderly.

I love it. I have a real passion for it.

Probably... It stems from... I was really close to my grandmother.

Oh, brilliant. So was I.

So, yeah, she was a huge influence on my younger life

and, yeah, we were really close all the way through my training.

I used to speak to her in the early hours of the morning,

so that inspired me to work with older people.

I feel really strongly that they're undervalued members of society.

-I agree.

-And I don't think they get the respect they deserve,

and the respect for their tremendous life experience,

so I genuinely feel it's a real privilege to work with them.

I'm probably quite a nosey person.

I really enjoy hearing people's life stories, which is

one of the privileges of this job.

I really enjoy hearing the perspective of those people

-who've been on this Earth a lot longer than me.

-Yeah.

That's definitely how I think of my mum.

I think I've still got a lot to learn from her.

Unfortunately, the older generation often seem to be dismissed.

We do need to actually look after our elder generation.

Are the elderly valued or unappreciated?

I think they are,

and there's increasing problems with isolation, as a result,

and isolation is also associated with not only a lower

quality of life but a shortening of people's lives.

So, yeah, that's another subject I feel passionate about,

is the isolation of elderly people.

I think how we value our elders is really a measure of society.

We are on our way to Barry to visit Bert Dowdell,

who has been living with dementia for years.

Bert's wife Brenda is there to meet us,

along with Lucy Young, a dementia care adviser on the React team.

Bert's dementia causes him hallucinations that leave him

anxious and scared, but he is a fighter.

I don't want to be...

..curled up in a...

..a hospital or something.

Did you mind us coming into your house?

We were coming to visit you quite often at one point.

How did you find that?

Oh...

As I say...

..if it's going to do me good, yeah,

you can come in and sit down and go to sleep...

SHE LAUGHS

'For Brenda, his wife of 16 years, the React team have been a lifeline,

'especially when Bert, in despair, tried to take his own life.'

For some reason I was going upstairs but, instead, I went out to the

garage and heard these noises, and there he was, trying to...

So, I cut him down...

..and phoned straightaway to the React team.

I think they flew from St David's, frankly,

because they were here, talked to me and Bert and...

He asked for help, which he needed to do.

So, really, without the React team, initially,

I don't think we'd be here discussing all this.

I can't even imagine what you guys went through during that time.

How is he now?

I think at the moment it has sort of plateaued.

His memory problems are there,

he's still hallucinating,

but it's accepted

and we're living with it. We live day to day with it.

I'm not sorry for myself.

If it gets...

I...

I...

I am...

Oh...

Bert, I understand it's really hard sometimes to find the right words,

-isn't it?

-Um...

Oh, God, I don't know...

-I know what I want to say and I can't say it.

-I can see, yes.

But I still want to...

..like I used to be,

-and that is never going...to do.

-Hmm.

I'm gradually...now...

taking it in.

It's going to be...

..and I'll have to live with this now to...

I mean, I'm 80... What am I, love?

-82? Next month.

-The next month.

-So it's not so bad.

-No, it's amazing.

What I find extraordinary is the fact that dementia is

a relatively modern illness.

Before the NHS, few people lived long enough to even get it.

And those who did were thought to have just gone a bit senile.

These days, however,

it is one of the biggest concerns for the modern NHS,

especially the costs of care.

Without voluntary carers willing to look after their loved ones,

the system just wouldn't work.

I know only too well that being a carer, albeit for my mum

and her MS, can be a very lonely and frustrating experience.

There are over six million carers in the UK.

Over 175,000 of them are under 18.

Brenda gets some relief from a weekly group called Solace,

and she has kindly agreed to introduce me

to some of the people she has met there -

Faith Perry, June Tomlinson and Joyce Pearce.

I really wanted to come and see you guys

because I was caring for my mother from...

When I was 12 years old, she got diagnosed with multiple sclerosis

but, really, caring is difficult at any age, isn't it?

-And so, you guys, you care for your husbands? Is that right?

-All of us.

-All of you?

-Mm-hm.

And I mean, the loves of your lives, that has got to be

very, very challenging, especially because

the more time that has passed where, I guess, you guys have

grown together, the more painful it probably is...

-Because the relationship has to change.

-OK.

We're no longer their wives, we're their carers.

-In a sense, we're their mothers.

-Yeah.

-And we have young children.

-Wow.

-You know what I mean?

-Yeah.

-They've gone from being our men to being our kids.

-Yeah.

-And their personality changes anyhow.

-Yes.

You know, they're not what they used to be.

-They're different people, really.

-Yeah.

They're not the people you've always known.

Bit by bit he's going.

He doesn't know he's going. He doesn't know what's happening.

But he's going. And I see the person I loved moving away from me.

He still knows I'm his wife, and he still loves to be cuddled.

But it isn't the same. He's not my child.

-And that is very sad.

-Hmm.

I miss security, as he has been mine for so many years.

-And that's what hurts.

-Hmm.

-Wow.

Les and I grew up around corner from each other,

so we've always known each other,

so I've always known what his personality is like, you know?

And since he's had the Alzheimer's,

he's just grown into a different person.

He's never been aggressive, never being bad-tempered,

but over the last number of years, all that has altered.

So, it is an entirely different person, you know?

And so it gets...

When you're looking after someone, you realise that, in a way,

you can take it because you know that, but what upsets me is...

-well, when he is like it to my children.

-Hmm.

'It's clear that despite the pain, the shared experience allows

'these wonderful ladies to support one another.'

We've taught each other things and we've learnt from each other,

and the encouragement from these folk is worth £1 million.

-Wow.

-Absolutely wonderful people.

We worked in the same company so I knew him a lot of my life

but, like you, he started getting aggressive.

Not meaning to, because he never was. He was as soft as a brush.

But little things...

But he's not my husband, really, any more.

Um...

He...

He keeps thinking I'm going to leave him.

Hmm...

Um...

Which I would never do.

But I miss the companionship.

The friendship.

I think we are only at the early stages of this,

judging by what I have seen of other patients.

Well, it's like, I'm at the end of it, having been through it

now for about ten years, my husband is 88 this year, and he has

had the Alzheimer's for that time, I can see where they're at

and how long they've got. It's like being bereaved.

My husband went into care, proper care, on Thursday,

but he'd previously been in, and I couldn't handle him any more.

And every time I go there and see him, and he doesn't know me,

it's really sad.

Hearing all of your experiences, I mean,

undoubtedly, it has to be a real strain for you guys.

Appalling.

Because there's never a moment. We cannot at any time relax.

There's no time where you can sit down and say, "Oh, lovely."

Because you can't do that.

-You have to sit down and say, "It's lovely, but where is he?"

-Yeah.

-Yes.

You know? There's always that...

I listen to every creak in the house.

I know where he is by listening to the house.

-Your hearing improves.

-Day and night. Yes.

It's never-ending.

It isn't. And it is out of love, I guess. Ultimately, why do we care?

-Because we love.

-It's the "in sickness and in health" bit.

I'm not sure about how you feel,

but this has really made me kind of reflect a lot on my own

situation with my mum, and thinking about the future as well.

So thank you so much.

-Thank you.

-Thank you for sharing with us.

-Thank you.

The ladies struck me as being very brave, very, very courageous.

I mean, for me, it was...

There were some very, very powerful stories,

and it kind of just feels like all this time has passed for them where,

you know, some of them have been together with their husbands

over 60 years, and at this stage of their lives, to see

such a transformation and such a change has got to be heartbreaking.

But they seem to somehow, some way, fight through the tears

and fight through the pain and just stay by their side.

It's... Hmm.

It's something that I'm definitely going to be

reflecting on for a very long time.

Back at the beginning of the NHS,

geriatric care was something of a neglected field, and I don't

know about you, but old folk back then just looked, well, older.

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

There's just me and my sister, two on our own.

I am 61 and she's 57.

The first breakthrough in elderly care came courtesy of a lady

called Dr Marjory Warren, who created the first geriatric unit

in the UK using methods that went on to be used across the NHS.

Her ethos - to get sick, elderly patients moving,

out of their hospital beds, where possible, and socialising.

Breathe in...

..and out.

20 - two, nought.

46 - four, six.

Bingo!

It's an approach that still thrives today

in places like University Hospital Llandough, Cardiff,

where there is a specialist day hospital for the elderly.

Dr Jane Turton is an elderly care specialist working in the rehabilitation day hospital.

-Elderly care medicine is one of the most important and most rewarding parts of medicine.

-OK.

And given that over the next 20 to 30 years we're going to have an enormous increase

in the number of people over the age of 80...

..I think having facilities like the day hospital available

to maintain the independence and the health of those individuals

is really, very important.

We have a very friendly atmosphere.

It's somewhere where they can be social.

So, if you place the putty just in the palm of your hand.

There we go. That's it. OK.

-See what you're trying to do there?

-Yeah.

A lot of people are on their own.

They are lonely when they're at home

and just bringing them in to be in contact with people who are of the same age...

..where they can be looked after,

-that's good for them as well.

-Yeah, absolutely.

Good. Straighten one leg out,

rotate those ankles round.

My mum's lucky in that she now has her own purpose-built space.

Looking one way, so we're just mobilising that spine now.

For those who don't, the day hospital is a lifeline.

OK. Sit down.

Sit back, OK.

Today, I'm joining Betty McCarthy and Brynmor Marrs as they get a workout

from dedicated physiotherapist Zellah Theobald.

You're going to come up on to your tiptoes and back down. Good.

Eight.

Well done. Really squeeze those bottoms.

-Activate that core like we've done before, OK.

-Squeeze that bottom.

Good.

Well done.

A lot of patients that have fallen end up becoming quite isolated almost because they,

due to a lack of confidence, lose their independence a bit, so coming into this environment

just helps improve that confidence, help decrease their fear of falling

and I think they really enjoy it anyway.

We do. Your company's lovely.

My mum does physiotherapy, like, three times a week.

She was wheelchair-bound for many years and since the physiotherapy,

she's taken her first steps again and so it's very interesting to see the similarities

and differences of what you guys do here to what she does.

Betty has been getting physio at Llandough Day Hospital for six weeks.

She had a nasty fall and then sciatica set in

which has made it hard to get about and knocked her confidence.

It's a bit like line dancing, this.

Yeah, and there's moonwalking there as well.

Exercise has always been important to the NHS, but this seems to be the next step.

So this looks like it's quite hard work, isn't it?

-It is, yes.

-Yeah.

But it's lovely, you know, we enjoy it and

of course everybody is so kind and Zellah makes us laugh.

-She's a funny one, isn't she?

-She is. She's lovely.

-So would it make a big difference to you to get more active?

-Oh, yes.

-I'm hoping, you know, I'll be able to get out and about shortly.

-Yes.

-You know, on my own once more.

That would be brilliant.

-More independent.

-Aw.

-Super.

-It's great seeing how doing these simple exercises not only improves the quality of Betty's and

Brynmor's physical health, but also their happiness as well.

OK.

For some people, growing old or sick can lead to serious mental health issues like depression or anxiety.

This was especially true in the bad old days.

The problems of old age are many and among them, perhaps aggravated by loneliness and boredom,

is mental breakdown.

The early record of the NHS's attitude to mental health was not good.

It's understandable that many old people bitterly resent the idea of going to an institution.

Before the NHS, people with mental health problems were housed in local authority-run asylums.

This institutionalised nature of treatment took a long time to break down.

There's no doubt in my mind, I think a lot of people agree with me,

that the patient with a psychiatric illness

is in fact a second-class patient.

And this is something that I think must be removed.

In the '60s, thanks to campaigners highlighting the poor treatment of many patients,

things did improve.

New buildings and new treatment have enabled the doctors here to cure far many more patients

than the average old-fashioned lunatic asylum.

An atmosphere of normal hospital life is encouraged as soon as the patients arrive

and from then until they leave, they move through wards that look more and more like a hotel.

The treatment is effective, if the patients' reactions are anything to go by.

Today, at the assessment and recovery unit

at University Hospital Llandough,

clinical staff provide support to the elderly

for mental health problems.

If we pick one of the topics from the sheet...

I've been invited to watch one of their stress-busting sessions.

So on this piece of paper, which I will pass round now,

it's got 45 ways to relieve stress.

Do you need a sheet? You've got a sheet, so I'll hand them round now.

You can be quite creative with it.

You can draw a picture which might help you to familiarise

yourself with it in future.

Something that helps you deal with stress when you're at home.

-Are you going to do blowing bubbles, Margaret?

-Yeah.

I can tick that one off. My attempt at drawing a hand was shocking!

Look at my stick man.

While the session continues, nurse Rebecca Farman fills me in

on why the treatment is vital.

When people get older, I think

people underestimate actually how much stress there is

in people's lives, like they've finished working, sometimes people's

friends have passed away or they have moved away.

Even things like mobility -

if people can't get around as easily,

they're not going out and seeing friends as much.

Have you finished there, Barbara?

-Yes, thank you.

-Music tree? That sounds very cool, doesn't it?

So, altogether so far, we've got a book,

-we've got sitting by the sea in the sun...

-Uh-huh.

Smiling.

We're looking out for different sorts of non-verbal behaviours,

as well as the things they're telling us.

We don't just chat in a group.

Sometimes we pull people out one-to-one, so that they can

give us a bit more information about how they're feeling.

Do you find having a cat quite a good way of relieving stress,

-and as a distraction as well, having pets?

-Oh, yes.

For patients like Margaret,

coming to the day hospital has been a life-saver.

I could not get myself together at all,

until it got so bad, I did not want to live in this world any more.

-Seriously?

-Oh, seriously. Very, very seriously, yes.

-Margaret.

Seeing different doctors.

The last doctor I saw,

she put me down to come here for two days a week.

When I first came, I just sat in the chair and wouldn't speak.

When I see you in there, you're the life of the party.

I can't see that being the same person.

-You can't see me in that dark hole?

-No, I can't. It's crazy.

I was a different person, and I'd bring my own Cup-a-Soup with me.

Did you?!

I did, actually, and a banana for after.

And that was me in the beginning.

But now, they've brought me out of that terrible depression.

I still get days, mind, I find it hard to get out of bed sometimes.

-OK.

-But Tuesdays, it's a different kettle of fish altogether.

I just love coming here.

I feel lucky that my mum has never got depressed,

and I'm sure her art helps.

At the day hospital, they do something similar,

and it's something I can get involved in. Music.

So, before I go, I've asked if anyone would mind joining me

for a sing-song.

June and Margaret have agreed,

as long as we stick to one of their favourites.

-What's that one?

-Putting On The Style.

-Oh, I don't know this one.

-You don't know it?

-No.

-Oh, we'll help you.

-You'll help me, right?

-We'll try!

-OK.

# Young man in a hotrod car

# Driving like he's mad

# With a pair of yellow gloves he borrowed from his dad

# He makes it roar so loudly

# Just to make his girlfriend smile

# But we know he's only putting on the style. #

Yes!

This is my favourite singer now.

My new favourite singer.

-Well done, everyone.

-Fantastic.

My time in Wales is up.

It's been an incredible few days,

and seeing the birthplace of the NHS has made me realise

how far we've come, and yet the people I've met have reminded me

how hard it is being a carer, even in 21st century Britain.

One of the things that has really struck me

as I've looked into how we care for our elderly in Britain today

is that life is short, and memories have to be cherished.

So today, I've organised a special event for my special mum,

one that she will remember for the rest of her life.

Secretly, I've invited my brothers and loads of my family

and old friends to come and have a surprise moving-in party.

Mum has no idea they're here, and knowing them well,

I'm just hoping that they can keep the noise down.

While I keep Mum occupied in the gardens,

their job is to hide in the house.

Home, sweet home.

Isn't this lovely?

-Fantastic.

-Oh!

It's the first time most of them

have visited my mum's new wheelchair-friendly pad.

-That's Naomi as well, you know?

-Yeah, yeah.

Hi, guys, we're going to start making our way to the bedroom now

for the big surprise.

All right. Let's squeeze in.

Let's squeeze in.

-So, we're heading back to the flat now.

-OK.

I just know my mum will love this if we can make it work.

Yes, my mum loves surprises.

When we were growing up, her and my dad always surprised us

for our birthdays, Christmas, whenever we did well at school,

they would do a nice little surprise for us.

I know my mum's speciality is surprises,

so I know she's going to love this.

Yeah, Oritse. We're all in.

Knowing my family, the hardest thing

is to be able to get everyone to do as they're told and stay quiet.

No jumping on the bed!

You're going superfast!

-Beautiful day, isn't it?

-It is.

-OK, so...

-All right.

I've got a little surprise for you, by the way.

Shhh!

Why are you looking at me like that?

Come over here. Come over here.

Come over here.

Come over here. Yeah...

Surprise!

Surprise!!

LAUGHTER AND CHEERING

INAUDIBLE

I'm so glad we did this. We managed to pull it off.

I don't think my mum had any idea.

-Were you really surprised?

-I was!

I'd just like to welcome you all, everyone,

to my new home

that Oritse has helped me to secure.

It's really quite comfortable here.

Do you see I've got my artwork?

Is it OK to sell someone a picture?

LAUGHTER

I would like to say thank you, guys, so much, man.

This means so much to Mum, and so much to all of us.

Everyone can eat now.

Over there.

A nice, cheerful one. Come on.

THEY CHEER

Is that all right? We're at a party!

# I'll take care of you

# I'll help you heal... #

Family has always been important to me.

Now, more than ever, since Omre was born,

we have been through a lot together,

but I'm beginning to realise how lucky I am.

You know, seeing all of the families,

all the people I've met over the last few days, has really,

really made me quite grateful about my situation with me and my family.

You know, one thing I have taken from all of this

is that we must look after each other so much better.

OK, Mum? Have you got everything you need?

# I'll take care of you

# I'll help you heal

# You know I will

# Take care of you

# No impossible

# I'll find a cure

# We've only got to worry about the things we've been through

# I won't let nobody put no pressure on you

# Take care of you... #