Frontline ambulance service staff honoured for twenty years in service

Frontline employees at North East Ambulance Service have been awarded for their 20 year long careers.
The North East Ambulance Service awardees.The North East Ambulance Service awardees.
The North East Ambulance Service awardees.

Her Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of Tyne & Wear, Mrs Susan Winfield OBE, presented the Ambulance Service (Emergency Duties) Long Service and Good Conduct Medal medal to 28 frontline emergency care colleagues.

Among the awarded was Andrew Taylor, Joanne McDonnell and Nicola Ballantyne from Ashington station as well as Lee Thompson from Backworth station.

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The medal is given to all A&E ambulance staff who have been in frontline emergency care services for more than 20 years, or seven years in frontline emergency care and 13 years in emergency care management and have demonstrated good conduct throughout their career.

Speaking at the ceremony, Mrs Winfield said: “My warmest congratulations to you all, and my sincere thanks for your devotion to duty and tireless work in your caring and often lifesaving responses to emergency calls.

“My thanks also to everyone who works for the North East Ambulance Service for all you do to provide medical care and transport across all our communities”

Helen Ray, chief executive of the North East Ambulance Service, said: “I am incredibly proud of all of our colleagues at North East Ambulance Service, especially those who have dedicated so many years of service to the North East public.

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“The past two years in particular have been incredibly hard for us as a service, but it is colleagues such as those in attendance today who make this service special.”

Lee Thompson started his career at NEAS in 1995, working initially as part of our patient transport service before qualifying as a paramedic. He later qualified as a paramedic and is now a doctor of trauma care.

Lee said: “I’m incredibly proud to work for NEAS and the NHS.

"I feel privileged to see our region at the forefront of the evolution of prehospital care, and being part of a team which is driving paramedic research from the grass roots, in what is a very unique and demanding area of clinical practice.

"It still makes me makes me proud to be a small cog in the big NHS machine. And who would’ve thought that a care assistant could one day become a doctor.”