We’ll be celebrating the 71^st birthday of our NHS on Friday 5 July by taking part in the NHS Big Tea – which follows on from the success of the BIG7TEA campaign held to celebrate 70 years of the NHS last summer.

Liz Phillips is our diabetic specialist midwife, and was named midwife of the year in our recent AHP (Allied Health Professional), Nursing and Midwifery Conference. She was nominated after receiving great feedback from her patients.

Liz, who has worked in our Trust for her entire career, had the best form of positive feedback as a newly qualified midwife when she helped to deliver a baby on her own for the first time – the new parents were so impressed they named the baby after her!

Did you know that we have 334 colleagues in our hospitals from the Philippines?

So it was important that we marked Philippines Independence Day this week. We had colourful stalls offering local food with staff in traditional dress at our hospitals. And we also spoke to one of our long-serving Filipino nurses, Rizza Javier for this week’s In Conversation With interview.

Rizza, who joined us in 2012, is our senior sister on Fern ward at King George Hospital. She tells us what inspired her to be a nurse and why she moved to the UK in 2005.

The Mayor of Havering, Councillor Michael Deon Burton, visited Queen’s Hospital on Friday (7 June), to join our celebrations as part of the national Volunteers’ Week.

Children from two local schools visited Queen’s Hospital this week to delight our patients, staff and visitors by singing popular songs, including favourites from musical The Greatest Showman.

It’s Volunteers’ Week (1-7 June), which we’re marking with a range of events and activities to celebrate and thank our wonderful volunteers.

We spoke to one of our dedicated volunteers, wayfinder Charlie Richardson, for this week’s In Conversation With. Charlie, who is also a patient partner for our Outpatients team, has volunteered at our Trust for two years, starting out as a way to say thank you for the great care his wife received when she was treated at our Trust for breast cancer 15 years ago.

We know there are lots of very interesting people in our Trust, whether through thie work, their interests or their hobbies outside work. We want to get to know them and share their story. So here is the next instalment of our series: In Conversation With…Lynn Griffiths, admissions officer for our Endoscopy team, who retires from our Trust this month after 46 years!

If you or someone close to you should become unwell over the Bank Holiday weekend, there are lots of options for you to get the care you need, saving you a long wait, so you can get back to enjoying your extra time off.

As it’s Dementia Action Week (20 to 26 May), we spoke to Alina Stevens, a nursing associate from our Dementia team. She’s wanted to work with dementia patients since she was just 11 when she was taken to the care home where her step-mum worked as punishment for misbehaving at school!

Our senior sister Nicola Loncke, has worked at our Trust for her entire career, starting her training with us in 1996. She’s spent most of her time on our neuro intensive care unit, and it was here that she recently made a difficult time that bit easier for a patient’s family, shortly before they died.

Read on to find out why Nicola was one of our You Made a Difference award winners.

If Nicola’s story inspires you to nominate someone from our team who has helped make a difference for you, you can find a nomination form here.