Nurses celebrate 60 years of the NHS

Nurses and other healthcare staff across the UK are gearing up to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the NHS on Saturday 5 July.

These include Beryl Hughes, who qualified as a nurse in 1948 and is still caring for patients as a volunteer at St Peter's Hospital, Chertsey in Surrey.

Ms Hughes is to attend a special service to mark the event at Westminster Abbey in London this week.

'I am really looking forward to it,' she said. 'I will be representing all the people I have had the honour to work with in the NHS over the years.'

A party has also be planned to take place at Wembley Stadium, with similar events being organised in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

As well as these centrally planned events, nurses and their trusts up and down the country have organised their own celebrations to mark the event.

Nurses in Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust are staging a 60-mile bike ride, while Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has arranged a birthday party for staff who were working in its hospitals in 1948.

An open-top bus sponsored by Unison will visit Manchester's Trafford General, the first NHS hospital.