IHEEM 75TH ANNIVERSARY DINNER
Emeritus Professor David Perrett entertains dinner guests in the Dylan Thomas Suite at the St David’s Hotel, with his look back at the comparative contribution to ‘health’ of doctors, scientists, and engineers.
served as MP for Ebbw Vale and Health Minister, which they intend donating to museums in Wales. She said of this year: “I have spent a number of memorable months in 2018 celebrating Nye’s achievement. I was in Tredegar back in the summer walking through the town with the miners, with the trade union banner held high. I then heard the Tredegar Town Band play the first rendition of a tune called ‘Legacy’, commissioned especially for the NHS this year. On that occasion I picked up a miner’s lamp, which I took off to Parliament, and I’ve been visiting Llandough Hospital – with its lovely murals. The hospital played a significant role in treating miners with chest diseases. “Throughout this year I have felt, first- hand, the love, admiration, and respect, that everybody I have met has for the NHS. I am very passionate about it, and continue to support the service at every level. It treats the many and not the few, it is not discriminatory, and responds admirably in a crisis. It employs over a million people in the UK, and is the world’s fifth biggest employer. It grows medical trailblazers, and, more importantly, repairs and cares for people that we love. It is for these reasons that we need to care for it and fight for it, if necessary, for future generations.”
Making a contribution
She concluded: “Everyone in this room is making a contribution. The Welsh Government has made a considerable capital investment in hospitals and estates, such as the new state-of-the- art centre in Cardiff to replace the Velindre site, and the new Llanfrechfa Grange specialist hospital just outside Cwmbran, and there are plans for a ‘super-surgery’ in Tredegar, where I grew up, and where Nye was born. Many of you here will be involved in the planning and delivery of these services. So, let’s take this opportunity to explore ideas and test out theories with the aim of making a safer and better NHS, fit for our children and grandchildren. I am so very proud of my heritage, and if Nye was here today he would be very honoured to see his great achievement marked all these decades
12 Health Estate Journal October 2018
later. There will be challenges, but I’ll finish by quoting Nye when he said: ‘This service must always be changing; it must always grow and improve; it must always appear to be inadequate.’” With that she thanked guests for their attention, and handed over to Helen Howson, director of the Bevan Commission, who discussed the Commission’s work. Helen Howson said that, in a nutshell, the Commission’s task was to say: ‘How on earth do we make and preserve such a fantastic jewel in the crown. How do we make sure that what we have in the health service is preserved for the future?’”
Internationally renowned Commissioners
She went on to explain that the Commission has 24 Commissioners, all internationally renowned in their own right, who give their time freely, and are all ‘passionate and committed to ensuring we leave a suitable legacy for our children’. She commended to the dinner guests a special book, ‘70 Years on… What Next?’, which includes each individual Bevan Commissioner’s perspective ‘on where the NHS should now go in terms of meeting its key challenges’. She told guests: “The Bevan Commission is keen to involve engineers and estates managers in the NHS in its ongoing work to transform health and
care in Wales, the UK, and beyond. It was a privilege to be able to address this IHEEM 75th Anniversary Dinner, and we look forward to developing a long-lasting relationship with IHEEM and its network to collectively develop a health and care system fit for the future.”
After-dinner speaker
A little later, the evening’s after-dinner speaker – appropriately given that the dinner took place in one of the UK’s rugby strongholds – was broadcaster, Phil Steele, who hails from a prominent sporting background, having played six seasons for Newport RFC in the 1980s, and been a member of the Wales B International rugby union squad. A former teacher of children with learning difficulties who grew up in Cardiff, Phil Steele has been a broadcaster on BBC Radio Wales since 1995, when he began providing rugby reports for Sportstime. He has since become a regular commentator and reporter on both BBC Wales Radio and TV, and is currently the pitchside reporter on the flagship rugby programme, Scrum V Live, and a commentator on Scrum V Highlights, as well as on BBC Radio Wales. His ability as a humorous song-writer has also seen him perform as a resident lyricist for Radio Wales on The Back Page and The World Cup Experience. He has also worked as a rugby reporter and commentator for BBC Radio 5 Live, Sky TV, and Ireland’s national radio station, RTE. Phil Steele took a light-hearted look back both at his early life, and his career as a broadcaster covering rugby union. He also reflected with some affection on his time as a teacher of children with learning difficulties, during which he said he had never failed to be surprised by some of the wonderful interactions he had with his pupils, and the things they said to him.
The Narmé Quartet of the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama.
It was a memorable evening, and Nygaire Bevan’s speech prompted Pete Sellars to say how ‘honoured and moved’ he had been to hear the great niece of the man who played such a pivotal part in launching an NHS we now all take for granted speak with such fondness, both of her illustrious predecessor, and of the wider service and all who work in it.
hej
©Martin Stewart
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