Last updated 05:33, Friday, 13 June 2008

AT the sharp end of every aspect of our National Health Service is a team of devoted, hard-working and above all caring people.

They are the heroes and heroines too often left unsung, even though these team members are the individuals on whose shoulders will always rest much of the responsibility for success or failure in achievement of patient satisfaction.

Today The Cumberland News celebrates and applauds excellence demonstrated across the North Cumbria Acute Hospitals NHS Trust. At an awards dinner last night in Penrith, the dedicated hard work of staff at Carlisle’s Cumberland Infirmary, the West Cumberland Hospital, Whitehaven, and Penrith Birthing Centre was highlighted and rewarded.

With 13 awards on offer to the brightest and best, winners who took the prizes did so in the knowledge that health service commitment meant there could be no losers.

Staff had been asked to nominate colleagues they felt had regularly gone above and beyond the call of what is, in so many cases, an onerous enough duty, to go the extra mile in the name of patient care.

Those who last night accepted honours awarded by their peers did so with an emotionally-charged humility that is so much a part of their calling.

With patients’ interests always at the heart of their work, they had shown much more than technical skill, medical expertise or managerial talent. They had demonstrated an instinctive understanding of patients’ needs and a willingness to meet them – often in particularly difficult circumstances.

Such is the special character of the people’s health service. Whatever the nature or leanings of its political masters; however frustratingly funding issues might beset its best efforts at effective management and whatever improvements we might wish for it – front line carers will always remain in the hearts and minds of grateful patients as the heroes and heroines offering support and hope in times of greatest need.