A SOUTHPORT man has staked a claim to be the longest serving NHS employee in its 60 year history.
With 48-and-a-half years’ service, Radnor Drive resident Geoff White, now retired, says he is yet to find anyone to top his impressive innings.
The claim is backed by Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley, who invited Mr White to recall his first-hand experiences of the NHS’ evolution at Conservative celebrations last week.
Mr White, 76, (pictured below) joined the NHS on July 26, 1948, just three weeks after the launch of the revolutionary service, serving as a public health officer until 1996.
He said: “I started when the NHS was just a baby and everyone was incredibly excited about it.
“Health care was expensive and a lot of people couldn’t afford it. The philosophy of looking after people from the cradle to the grave came in and there was genuine buzz.
“Nowadays the service has changed beyond recognition but the message of free care at the point of need is still true.�
In his job role as a Health Promotion Manager, Mr White was responsible for the prevention of illness and regularly went into local schools to give presentations and talks on healthcare.
Whilst social changes have changed the subjects of his talks, his mentality always has remained the same - prevention is better than the cure.
He commented: “In the 60s people all of a sudden had more money and more access to alcohol and smoking, so there was a vast increase in lung cancer and alcoholism, and we had to adapt to that.
“The contraceptive pill also arrived on the scene which brought about sexual freedom and the rise of STDs, so we had to look at getting the safe- sex message out.
“Throughout my time in the NHS it was all about teaching people lifestyle choices - whether that was informing teenage girls about the financial cost of falling pregnant or boys about the dangers of smoking.�
Mr White worked in hospitals in Manchester, Essex, Liverpool and Bury across his distinguished career and believes that the biggest worry the NHS has going forward is staffing and cash shortages.
But he insists that Southport and Ormskirk Hospital Trust has “more or less got it right�.
He added: “What annoys me the most is the rise in bureaucracy that has swamped the NHS.
“More money needs to be spent on service provision on not on repainting vehicles or changing the headed notepaper. At the moment, staff can’t do what they want to do because the resources aren’t there.
“There are too many managers when it is front-line staff that we need.�

Geoff White, a former Health Promotion Manager, could be the NHS’ longest-serving employee

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