Shropshire NHS awards: Angela and Roger Turner help out 16 hours a week

Husband and wife team Angela and Roger Turner volunteer 16 hours per week in the Chemotherapy Day Centre at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.

They are part of a band of people who give up their time to help others in our county.

Today the Shropshire Star starts a week-long series in which we highlight some of the people who help keep NHS services going.

We will profile each of the five finalists in the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust for its VIP Awards.

And, on Saturday, we will explain how you can vote for your winner, who will receive their award at a ceremony on September 29 at the Park Inn in Telford.

• Find out how you can vote in Saturday’s Shropshire Star.

• We will run down all five finalists and explain how to make your choice.

• Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust’s VIP Awards reward workers who help make a difference.

• The Shropshire Star has teamed up with the trust for the People’s Choice category.

• Finalists will be invited to an awards ceremony later this month.

Angela, 74, and originally from North Wales, began volunteering at the day centre in 2006 and was joined by Roger, 75, originally from Surrey, about three years ago.

The pair provide patients with refreshments during their treatment. They also both work with group pre-assessment clinic, which meets patients who are about to receive treatment, along with a team of 10 volunteers.

And they help make short information films for the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, which the trust says has given consistency in the information that patients are given and allows them to digest information in their own time with family and friends.

Roger, who used to be a BBC cameraman travelling worldwide for documentaries, says his work offers him to give the oncology department something back for the chemotherapy treatment and care he received in 2001.

Angela said: "Roger and I consider it a privilege to work with the patients and the fantastic and dedicated staff of the Chemotherapy Day Centre.

"I've always volunteered in the health sector, going back to my early days working in hospitals and I feel comfortable there and feel an affinity with people who are facing health challenges. We were surprised to be nominated because, across the two hospitals, there are about 800 volunteers who I am sure all go the extra mile on a daily basis, but it is very kind for us to be acknowledged for what we have been doing.

"The patients that we work with are extremely courageous and the staff are terrifically dedicated."

The couple are no strangers to volunteering. In their younger years, Angela helped at St Peter's Hospital in Chertsey, where the couple lived, until their daughters went to school.

Roger also worked with a UK charity that supports orphans and travelled to Uganda several times on behalf of the charity.

He then worked as a volunteer for two years in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and, joined by Angela, the pair helped people living in the highly impoverished area. Angela worked as a volunteer with an American missionary doctor, concentrating on the health of children in the primary school run by the Anglican Diocese of Dar es Salaam and, when she came home, set up a charity called the Porridge Project to raise funds to provide a daily bowl of porridge for approx 300 malnourished children each day.

David Burrows, a spokesman for the hospitals trust, said: "This volunteer-led service has not only improved patients' experience, but has also reduced nurse specialist time – this time can now be used to see more patients and provide specialist care. Both Angela and Roger are truly dedicated and caring individuals."