5 July 2021
Three Frimley Health staff attended a special ‘Big Tea’ hosted by The Duke of Cambridge in the gardens at Buckingham Palace to celebrate the 73rd birthday of the NHS.
Dr Chris Orchard, respiratory consultant; Farieda Adams, Head of Occupational Therapy and Suman Shrestha, nurse consultant, intensive care, were among a group of 30 NHS staff from hospitals across the country who were invited as a thank you for their incredible work tackling the Covid pandemic.
The event was also attended by Sir Simon Stevens, the chief executive of NHS England, and is one of several Big Tea events taking place around the UK, which has been organised by NHS Charities Together giving local communities the chance to thank staff and volunteers for their work during the pandemic.
Dr Orchard, joined Frimley Health in 2014 as a respiratory consultant and is now the thoracic lead for all of the Trust’s hospitals. During Covid, Dr Orchard oversaw the care of hundreds of patients in Frimley Park Hospital’s high dependency unit.
He said: “It’s been an incredibly challenging time, the second wave hit us much harder as we were dealing with such a high number of Covid patients and still keeping up with our normal activity seeing respiratory patients who had previously been shielding. It was a real privilege to be invited here today and represent the 10,000 staff who work across Frimley Health. I am very lucky to work with incredible people and the team rallied together to get us through. We really appreciate the support the public has given us and I hope it will continue as we face a long road to recover from all of this.”
Suman Shrestha, nurse consultant, is son of a Gurkha officer who was born in Nepal and came to the UK in 1997. He trained to be a nurse in the same year and became one of the first Nepalese male nurses in the country. Suman has worked in intensive care at Frimley Park Hospital since 2001. During the pandemic, on top of caring for Covid patients, he trained more than 400 redeployed doctors, nurses and allied health professionals so they could support ICU and worked at national level with NHSE and professional organisations developing clinical guidelines and strategies to tackle the pandemic.
Suman said: “I was absolutely thrilled to be invited to this royal event and represent Frimley Health Trust. It was an amazing experience, particularly after the last 18 months working through both waves of Covid. I’ve worked in Intensive Care for 20 years and it was the most challenging, worrying time ever. I am fortunate to work with a fantastic group of individuals, I couldn’t have got through it without them so it was an honour to represent all of my colleagues today.”
Farieda Adams, Head of Occupational Therapy and Surgical Appliances, has been an Occupational Therapist for 23 years and has worked in the NHS since 2001. She has been in the trust since 2015.
She said: “It was the most challenging period the NHS has faced in my experience and I have never seen so many teams: medical, nursing, therapies, estates, procurement and hospitality, to name a few, pull together as well as they did during the pandemic. I am humbled to get this opportunity today. ”
NHS Big Tea coincided with the 73rd birthday of the NHS which was celebrated across Frimley Health. The Frimley Health Charity team handed out cakes and goodies donated by local companies to staff at Frimley Park, Heatherwood and Wexham Park hospitals, as well as the community hubs in Aldershot, Farnham and Fleet. The event was also be marked with the official opening of the new wellbeing garden at Frimley Park Hospital, one of the spaces created for staff thanks to the donations given to Frimley Health Charity and NHS Charities Together.
You can support your local hospital by texting TEA to 70560 and donating £5 to support Frimley Health Charity.