It’s my third monthly round up and I’m getting in the swing of it, although this is a short one. I wanted to start by saying thank you so much to everyone that has read the blog so far and given me such a warm response. I was literally shaking when I published my first one. I am very comfortable on a stage – be it speaking at a conference or singing on the karaoke! – but publishing my thoughts felt more permanent and scary.

So for December – well it would appear my two children are also comfortable on a stage and we had an inordinate number of carol services and shows to attend in the run up to Christmas. I managed to make them all which was a Christmas miracle in it’s own right – although there was one moment where I begged the school to keep the kids even though a pipe had burst and we were being asked gleefully to take the children home early after the show. A mum next to me recognised my panic stricken look as I had work I desperately needed to finish and needed the kids to stay in school!

I absolutely LOVE Christmas, for me it really is the most wonderful time of the year. But it is difficult to sustain the Christmas spirit at times working in the NHS and it was a month of extreme opposite emotions for me.

It’s a strange contrast between getting all ready for Christmas at home and getting ready for the hardest time of the year at work. On the one hand I had the most magical time with the kids – we sang Christmas songs at the piano, went ice skating, we even went to Lapland, found the real Santa and spotted the Aurora which was unbelievable! But in the same month we had my husband’s cousin’s funeral following suicide which was incredibly difficult for the family and put the work we’re doing on mental health in to sharp focus for me, we had industrial action to manage and the usual winter pressures which seemed even worse this year.

Things don’t ever slow down at Christmas in the NHS and especially in the Ambulance Service. In the digital team we ramped up our usual efforts to ensure the systems remained resilient. As a category one responder under the National Civil Contingencies Act we have to ensure we have resilient systems. If you want to find out about resilience and business continuity speak to an Ambulance Service digital team, they know their stuff! Along with the usual resilient set up we made sure the systems could handle significantly increased activity and increased our telephone lines and on the BI side we turned around national data requests at break point speed. I had a good full week off but was on call Boxing Day and New Year’s Eve and the systems all held up well.

Earlier in the month I did an observation shift with Emily and John – annoyingly I didn’t get a photo of them but they were great. They described it as a ‘good shift’ largely as we didn’t spend all day waiting in or outside A+E to handover our patients. As ever I was amazed by the patience, empathy and outstanding care provided.

Our ‘good shift’ ranged from a patient who had already passed away and his devastated sons, a lovely older couple – one of whom was struggling with multiple conditions and cancer, a lady who had pushed herself too far after a heart operation and a lady with learning disabilities and autism who had been discharged the previous day but needed to go back in to hospital. I’d never been in anywhere like the home she lived in where patients had such complex needs. I watched her carers looking after her and others in the small care home and imagined what a tough job it was to do day in and day out – over the weekends, the evenings and the holidays – how overlooked these jobs often are but how important they are. I hoped that my family or myself would be cared for with so much kindness in our times of need.

So to all the carers out there, everyone who worked (or not) over Christmas, those who’ve had a hard month and everyone else – I hope you remembered how amazing your are and found some joy at Christmas – here’s to 2023! Happy new year!