Ethel Armstrong: ‘I’ve been working in the NHS since it was born in 1948’ Ethel Armstrong’s NHS career is as old as the health service itself. Having been there at its birth on 5 […]

Ethel Armstrong’s NHS career is as old as the health service itself. Having been there at its birth on 5 July 1948, she worked for more than four decades at various hospitals around the country, mainly in radiography and nursing, and since then for two charities that support current and retired NHS staff.

“I’m the only person in the country who has done continuous service since 1948,” the 87-year-old tells i. “Did 42 years at the sharp end and I’m still working hard for the two charities that actually support the NHS – for free. And that’s the important bit – supporting people at the sharp end every day, not the people in the offices at the top.”

The NHS Retirement Fellowship, where Ethel is co-patron, is a welfare organisation for retired caring professionals and their partners to meet and socialise with others who are new to having time on their hands.

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The Cavell Nurses’ Trust, named after Edith Cavell, the World War One nurse who helped some 200 Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium during the First World War, for which she was arrested, court-martialled and shot, supports those still working as nurses or midwives, including students and healthcare workers.

“I’m the only person in the country who has done continuous service [for the NHS] since 1948.” Ethel Armstrong

Ethel’s extraordinary efforts led to her becoming the star turn at the Health and Care Innovation Expo 2017 in Manchester, where NHS chief executive Simon Stevens emerged on stage hand in hand with Ethel to join him for his keynote speech.

Ethel was born in Durham and returned to her native north east after retiring. Her husband Harry was a director for Hawker Sidley, the British group of manufacturing companies which made the Harrier jump jet among its many aircraft. He passed way 19 years ago, but it was his job that allowed Ethel to work at so many different trusts around the country.

“Harry was a wonderful man. He travelled from John O’Groats to Lands’s End which meant I was able to cherry pick the hospitals I wanted to work at. His job gave me the opportunity and I seized it with both hands. I did clinical practice, oncology and I was at the sharp end – and that’s what it’s about. Everybody from the most junior person in a department to the most senior, everybody contributes and we have to get this NHS and the staff that it has working back again as a team, getting back to make things better for the one person who is in your care.”

Great teacher

Ethel was also fortunate to have the right support at her school, which she left at at 17.

“I had a wonderful headmaster who said it was pointless doing another year in sixth form as you’ve got all the distinctions you need, it’ll get you anywhere and let’s see what you can do. I really wanted to do dentistry or medicine but my parents could not have afforded to keep me at university for 6 years – because there were no grants [for girls], and all the grants went to the boys, so I did my training the hard way.”

Her first job was at the largest mental health hospital in Newcastle and started as a “cadet”, rotating in different departments for a year while waiting to get into the school of radio diagnosis, which didn’t take students until 18. “I did admin, patients’ records, in the laboratory, on the wards and once I did that I started with my shiny shoes on the 5 July 1948, the birth of the NHS.

“I’ve seen more changes than you can shake a stick at. The important ones are the ones that improve lives – the other ones you just forget about.”

“I’ve seen more changes than you can shake a stick at,” she says. “The important ones are the ones that improve lives – the other ones you just forget about, but advances in maternity services and knee replacements, hip replacements, have been tremendous. I lived during a time when I was able to work with the cream of the crop.”

Among the pioneering doctors Ethel worked alongside were Professor Sir John Charnley, an orthopaedic surgeon who pioneered the hip replacement operation, now one of the most common operations both in the UK and worldwide.

“Doctors would fly in here, to Manchester, to see see Sir John Chandley. I knew him when he was John Chandley and had the privilege of seeing him knighted. The advances in technology have been extraordinary since then. As Simon [Stevens] says, we are now doing limb transplants and hand transplants, particularly on people with severe injuries, and getting them back to use again.

Maternity services

“But there have been other significant changes too, especially in maternity services. Now there are small babies in special care units the size of a bag of sugar who will survive, but they wouldn’t have survived before 1948, because a delivery [before the NHS] cost one in sixpence – and one in six brought bread and margarine for that family, many of whom had up to 10 or 11 children because of the post war baby boom. So many took their chances giving birth at home.

“But if they had been born the day after the birth of the NHS, the 5th of July, 1948, it wouldn’t have cost them anything. The changes and advances have been tremendous. I have seen them all and privileged to have served 70 years continuous service between the NHS and the two charities that support the staff who work for the NHS.

“I will do anything to support our NHS and we must really get people to realise we take so many things in healthcare for granted, that were not taken for granted up to 1948, so just remind people of that.”

Radio-diagnosis remains Ethel’s passion. “It’s simple: if you get the diagnosis right, you get the treatment right. It starts off with the radiographer operating the machine – because the radiologist doesn’t see the patient – and getting the right part of the body to get exactly what you want.”

However, even Ethel thinks her time in the health service is almost at an end. “Our NHS turns 70 next year, which will also be my 70th anniversary. It’ll probably be time to retire for good then.”