"I am Head Biomedical Scientist and overall manager for the Histology, Cytology and Mortuary departments of York Hospital where I have been for the last 18 years.

"These are the departments which process and provide a diagnostic report on any cellular diagnostic pathology that is needed by the hospital. This includes any biopsies or tissue resections (for instance breast, bowel or skin) and also the cervical cytology service which is the single is the regional laboratory for all of North Yorkshire, Hull and East Riding and for North Lincolnshire and Goole. Our mortuary (one at York and one at Scarborough) provides both a hospital and a public mortuary service for the deceased of both communities.

"I have worked for the NHS for 37 years, working at Newcastle and several hospitals in London prior to joining York in 2000.  While I have always worked as a laboratory technician, I originally moved into the NHS to undertake research, eventually moving into diagnostic work as I enjoyed the fact that you are directly helping patients and public rather than working for a company which is just benefitting its shareholders.

"I’m fortunate to be in a job where the days always fly by. The variety and hugely diverse nature of all the departments that I manage mean that no day is ever the same and it is always very busy. No matter how you plan ahead, you are never sure what may come through the door on a daily basis meaning you might be required to drop everything to go and sort out a particular issue at a moments notice.

"The biggest changes I’ve seen in my time with the NHS are the massive technological advances that have been made in medicine and treatment. When I first started we used special dyes to stain the tissue we work on, now we use DNA targeted molecular markers for some cancer diagnosis which results in much better treatments for patients.

"To me, the NHS is perhaps the single most unique and precious thing that is still nationally freely available to everyone in the UK, and it is something I passionately believe in."