YOU might not know their names, but this team of hospital scientists has probably made a difference to your life at some point during the past four decades.

It might have been during a pregnancy, when you had a nasty cut or when you could have died after contracting a serious infection.

Biomedical scientists Robert Newnham, Audrey Parsons, Lorraine Clarke and Jane Simms all joined what was the Radcliffe Infirmary’s microbiology laboratory as school leavers in the summer of 1973.

And they have now celebrated a combined service of 160 years behind the scenes of day-to-day hospital life.

The Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust microbiology laboratory moved to the John Radcliffe Hospital when it opened in 1979.

It processes samples for GP surgeries and all the Oxfordshire hospitals – from infected cuts to samples from life-threatening infections like brain abscess or septicaemia.

Chief biomedical scientist Mr Newnham, from Bletchingdon, said: “I love the job. It’s hands on and you are making decisions all the time.

“You always know there is a patient behind every sample, which is the important thing.”

Mrs Parsons, a virologist and senior biomedical scientist, from Wheatley, said many of those patients would never know the laboratories – or the teams of scientists that run them – existed.

She added: “In a way, we don’t want the patients to know about us. We just want to ensure they get test results back as efficiently as possible; it should be seamless.”

Miss Clarke is now the laboratory manager and head biomedical scientist. She said: “Our job is to diagnose infection. Samples are taken from the patient and we analyse them. It could be a bacterial, fungal, parasitic or viral infection. We can then help the medical staff select the right treatment, and in some cases retest to monitor that treatment.”

Mrs Simms, deputy laboratory manager and chief biomedical scientist, said analysing suspected meningitis samples was one of the most urgent jobs in the lab.

She added: “Someone comes to the Emergency Department with suspected meningitis and a sample is taken by lumbar puncture.

“We have to analyse that and turn around the results as quickly as possible. “The process of analysing that sample has not changed, it is a very skilled biomedical scientist doing it manually. The result is then phoned back to the consultant to ensure the treatment is correct.”

Dr Derek Roskell, clinical director of pathology and laboratories, said: “Over these 40 years Lorraine, Audrey, Jane and Robert have helped the laboratories to meet the challenges of new diseases, new technologies for diagnosis, and, of course, the significant financial and workload pressures of the modern NHS – all this while working with what can be very dangerous infections. They are very modest people, but they really do a fantastic job.”

It is for teams and individuals like these that the Oxford Mail Hospital Heroes awards launched this month, to recognise the work of staff across Oxfordshire’s NHS hospital.