5 July is NHS Day in the UK – marking 77 years since the National Health Service was established.
The NHS was launched after many years of cumulative hard work by several influential figures that wanted to replace the current healthcare system, which was considered unsatisfactory, with a revolutionised version that would provide care as it was needed, rather than being reliant on someone’s ability to pay.
In 1948, the then Minister of Health, Aneurin Bevin, launched the NHS in Park Hospital in Manchester. Its first patient was a 13-year-old called Sylvia Diggory, who was admitted with liver problems.
NHS fact file
- The NHS deals with over 1 million patients every 36 hours.
- In 2017, a Commonwealth Fun Report ranked the UK as top for the healthcare system performance.
- The NHS is the fifth largest employer in the world. This is behind McDonalds, Walmart, the US Department of Defence and China’s People’s Liberation Army.
- The NHS employs roughly 1 in 20 of Britain’s working population.
- The NHS was founded out of the ideal that good-quality healthcare should be accessible to all, regardless of wealth or income.
PTSG has a long and proud history of providing a wide range of specialist services at NHS sites around the UK. One of its first main contracts was the delivery of a programme of fixed-wire testing at the world’s largest single-floor critical care unit within Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham. PTSG has had to identify innovative ways of testing the infrastructure, which is conventionally completed using a range of live and dead load testing.
NHS Nightingale Exeter was one of the first temporary hospitals set up by NHS England for the COVID-19 pandemic. PTSG completed a flash project in ten weeks to make the hospital safe, secure and ready for use with a range of fire and security assets. They include fire alarms, air sampling, access control and CCTV.
Specialists from PTSG Access & Safety Ltd have installed fire escape staircases, as well as delivering planned preventative maintenance of fall protection systems and equipment.
As the UK’s leading provider of lightning protection services, PTSG has installed as well as delivering testing and maintenance programmes at numerous NHS sites in the UK.
PTSG has also delivered water hygiene and water treatment services both in England and Scotland, ensuring NHS facilities remain compliant and their users stay safe.
